Trickster

Fable

48 Fable —for Esther Traugot 1. I began innocently enough Dressing the Apple tree in unmatched socks To dissuade the Deer from grazing To deter the Codling Moths from burrowing To keep the Squirrels at bay— After all, the fruit was mine. 2. Socks made Tree’s limbs look naked. What if I clothed them too, used hooks & yarn? I decided to crochet in gold. Twigs too delicate for yarn, I stitched with string Disguising every seam with tiny knots. I gilded Tree, limb by limb— Black twig tips I left unclothed, so light And wind might fondle them. 3. I couldn’t stop stitching. Seashell was empty, its silence lost To echoes, exiled to noise. What could I do but fill it? Go at it With hooks & yarn. If a living Tree Could be clothed, why not a Shell? In Shell’s blue spiral, I nested gold squares. Shell was luminous, silent again. 49 4. Then, oblong, unbalanced Egg Fragile, alone, needed to be clothed. I hooked a hood of thin gold thread. I left a pale oval, where a face Might appear. I never dropped a stitch. My hooks sang only being or nothingness. Egg pulsed gold light— Its dark inside secure. 5. Where my yarn lapsed, shadows Began, extending every object out in time. Fine gradated shadows of the Apples The Tree, the Shell, the Egg— Shadows articulating time, its Ceaseless touching, prodding on. There was no way to intervene, to save. My hands lay folded in my lap. The gold quivering with light. ...