Relentless Beauty
On this relentless
Occasion, out
Of a white fog,
No discernible horizon
Anywhere, a ubiquitous
Bliss is this simple:
Snow falls all day,
Into dusk, into night,
Snow arrives, descends
Until it doesn’t.
Snow heaps upon,
Clings to, every branch,
Birch and pine alike,
Every brittle, abiding
Leaf, and needle,
Curved to a burden,
A clerestory tracery,
A soaring vaulting,
A crystalline nave (This occasion, more
Rare than Rome,
The Villa Borghese,
First stanza to the left,
Bernini’s pale Daphne,
Delicate, marble fingertips
Turning to laurel
,Leafing in her flight).
Bliss is simply this:
Snow on the apple
Limbs, easily prolific
Blossoms in May.
I long to recall
This relentless beauty
Again and again,
Return to this vision
From time to time,
A salve for absurdity
(Relentless frailty),
Assuaging the ugly
Bedlam of humanity,
This occasion for bliss.
Resilience
Remnants of the hurricane
(I forgot its given name),
Incidental Atlantic fragments,
Rent half the tree, splintered
All usual assumptions,
Filled the driveway with carnage
–I could not escape – foliage,
Abandoned nests, brittle, broken,
Misplaced arms and legs,
Sheared at the joints.
Certainly, I’m not indifferent.I didn’t hear, didn’t notice
The spectacular slaughter,
No sounds at all while
I pursued my routine.
Instead, from my recliner,
I watched the wind tug
At a spider’s web, modest
Basilica, architectural marvel,
Moored in the window niche.
I admired the resilience,
Stronger than the wooden giant,
The white, woven silk,
Easily erased, no trace,
With a flick of my broom.
I’d cut the bough in convenient
Slices, for firewood, for flame,
But my saw was getting fitted
With a new set of teeth.
The body will lie there
Until next week, naked
Corpse in the street.
After several more storms,
The web remains steadfast,
And the tree begins its decay.
David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.