Lacemakers

What Remains

17 What฀Remains When one season is at the brink of spilling over, you recall the way you walked, ankle-high in yellow leaves, a year ago, or maybe two— it could have been two months for all the lapse, except the light, its bright tone of between: the vibration that gathers before winter’s coma. A kaleidoscope of Novembers— where did you hear that time is a thing like a crystal, the way the facets are the same when it fractures into something smaller? Confirmation class. A vine and leaf pattern rimmed the altar, the mantle green, for epiphany. Here, Lichen and helicon moth, sun caught in descent. Teach us to number our days, the reverend had read—a hope that something is saved in the contemplation, even if you wake one morning to recall the voice of wind in this burnt-out gully, branches black, arterial, leaves fallen deep on the path over the ridge. ...