o lonely leaf

I read a lovely poem by Mary Oliver. As I was writing it down (to really suck the marrow out of it) I wrote my own poem alongside it.

for how many years
have you gone through the house
shutting the windows
while the rain was still five miles away?

bunkering down, closing off
shutting out, isolating
because you have seen the rain clouds

and veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the north
away from you

still distant, and uncertain
it’s premature - the thing you fear is still so hazy
you’ve been putting off
the trip to the mall
for the eye checkup!
and not even noticed the blurring

and you did not even know enough
to be sorry

not knowing
what you don’t know you don’t know

you were glad
those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple

the strands and streams
of possibility

were sweeping on, elsewhere,
violent and electric and uncontrollable -

fun where there is none
visions of grace, or of distaste?
diverging, emergences

and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget
all enclusures, including

still clicked together
fragments
a composition
betraying the childlike glee
of its construction

the enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will you
dash finally, frantically

but here
and now
where out
is in
bear fruits
by morning after

to the windows and haul them open and lean out
to the dark, silvered sky, to everything

for to be uncomputable
is to be as before

that is beyond capture, shouting
I’m here, I’m here! Now, now, now now, now.

o lonely leaf,
what law but your own?