BOUGH
ABY KAUPANG
“little gray toad of a heart flopping
weakly here or there in his chest”
Ray Bradbury
And then there is that night when all around, all around you hear the cracking of tree
limbs, one by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is
four then five then nine then thirty, until all the limbs impress like raccoon prints,
shatter like crystals in the blue October snow and you are the last limb on the oak;
and you liken for the lamplight to lift you down gentle from your grip upon the wet
and leafy sky.
Long before you press into the firmament, you will have forgotten there ever was a
wimple or other branches or breach or low and loamy soil beneath the crystalline
wild.
night allaround
night
limbs cracking
first one here/there & there
4 5 9 &30
limb crystals shatter
like
raccoon prints impress
a blue October snow & You
last limb
the oak on
& liken for the lamplight
lift me down gentle my grip
clings the wet and leafy sky
there was ever wimple branch or breach
low & loamy the soil churns
beneath a glassy trill
lamplight on snow branch of oak limb
over wet leaves snow
in background sound of cracking
in air fingernail moon above branch
being that lets the present
such that this is
hues & weights
framed in landscape
impression of raccoon prints
October’s blueness of gleaming snow
loamy soil beneath
Conditions:
& then there is all around all around
from at first here/there until
the last long before
you will have
beneath
Bones:
Nightallhearcrack limbonetreeoneherethere fourfiveninethirtyall limbsshatter
impresscrystalsracoonprints blueoctober
N2 A8 L12 C5 O4 T6
F1 S4 R1 P1 I1 B4 Y1
M2 D1 G2 W3 E1
∘∘∘