JUST WHEN WE ARE SAFEST

1 2 6 Y J U S T W H E N W E A R E S A F E S T R O A L D H O F F M A N N In this approximant to paradise there are no forbidden trees and after you grow accustomed to the wonder of fairy rings a hundred feet tall, and trails softer than any carpet, to moss, the small cones and ferns, you walk, at peace, to the meter of your breath. Until, following a stone up a road cut, the shrub: the beat, it stops, the wind in the redwoods is not there. Part sti√, vibrating in resist; part supple, like a willow. A branch going straight, then jigs a wild angle turn that cuts sharp the air, leaving (no leaves) a hard notion of what curve might be. No bark just what seems skin, charged yet smooth – ochre to orange, 1 2 7 R green rising, its sleek reaching for your hand; there are scales that brush o√; you want to do it, to see if the gloss can bear a mark. And then, near sherry smooth bark-skin goes matte all light is sopped up, and dry ranges of warm browns darken to a threatening purplish tinge, like the stone-beat indigo fabrics of West Africa, like the bronze of metalammonia solutions – I touch it. The manzanita is philosophy, of virtue – of branching, and the matte purple bark sublime. ...