#994 - tree of hands

 

26.ix.22

994

3.268

tree of hands

ekphrastic for an untitled work by Angie Contini

for the adventure of flying islands

 

 

it’s like the forest

that grows up over the city

and it keeps growing

there isn’t a plan

 

it’s rather a nest of fallen fruit

you’d need a rope ladder

 

sometimes a tree will grow so tall

it might lose itself in the sky

    others follow

a whole forest goes that way

here we are

 

it can be like this in every direction

yet remains an island

 

heart of stones

brave flowers

fixed each to a heaven above

 

the leaf

the clasp

the cling

 

some have lit to the tip

 

every sky is a work of belief

you know they weren’t always blue

 

this is the tree that nobody built

it stands up all by itself

 

here are the hands

have climbed to be here

 

each part its own direction

each hand is a half of a prayer

 

tree grows as it lights

as it is

 

this neither final nor

come to rest

but time is laid down here

 

in the ruins and in the pointing

are means of propulsion

 

so hard to keep on the spot

as they are

 

here’s time in the sky in the branches

 

and all of this is just

so that we may be where we are

so each may be beside a self

with an accidental sky