I want to toss golden leaves
at your feet, golden leaves
on your shoulders, golden leaves
in your opening hands. Gold in the wheat,
gold in the field, I want to spill
the rich amber into your thoughts. And this scent
of the world as it changes, this deep
sweet dusk of earth perfume,
I want to swirl it in eddies around you,
everywhere you walk. The luminous
red hue of the berry bush outside my window,
the bush I always notice but cannot name,
I want to give you the morning light
that gathers in its branches and makes
scarlet worship along the edges of the leaves.
The edges, love, that’s where
the meaning gathers. Like the Mandelbrot set or
the Koch Curve, what appears
to be a limited space or line contains
an infinite pattern that unfolds and unfolds
and unfolds. A never-ending story in finite time,
a boundary we can walk forever.
Perhaps love is like the edge of a leaf,
a fractal, beautiful in its immeasurable
breaking and endless remaking, beauty
far beyond what we see. But I digress.
I was giving you gold, remember,
and the loamy bouquet of change, and
and the ecstasy of sun in autumn,
and here, while we’re at it, the sky.