WHAT IS

7 7 R W H A T I S P E T E R C O L E For MRM, in memoriam The Norway maple’s chartreuse crown in April ciphers autumn’s flares, startling with mace-like spikelets of flowers swelling over the paths of that square where we wander, adrift in the branching – or is it what’s branching adrift in us – wafted as if afloat on a wisdom flowing through this city forest. The grid encodes an understanding: Those who stroll past tines of elms, who’ll wade the shade of summer’s linden and trace the mottled bark of planes, move as though of their own accord but under invisible gates of a grace born in their being borne along or gradually dying to the spell of the place where dogs are walked and judgment is rendered and power, as weakness, brings down limbs; where mercy’s continual averment is tendered, and children at recess dart into rings; where a woman’s will surges through her sitting alone in the rinse of her cancer, as the vapor of chatter’s released to the air. All part of the terrible splendor – 7 8 Y the weeping cherry shedding petals, like snow in an ancient ocular rhyme – the sight, of course, is a site of convention, the tiniest of triumphs over time, and yet – somehow, the sarabande combines as majesty. The rupture and gentle carriage of kindness. The wind’s extended winding kiss. The almost now actual: a marriage not so much of opposites as, say, opposing aspects – exits to entrances, or attics holding an axial weave of sound’s foundation. The praxis perfecting opens into. An instant’s happiness putting us back in the business of funneling the whole shebang, which Kabbalists have given a name. Kingdom. What is. ...