In Every Fallen Leaf by Leslie Caplan

The ground is tilled
and deep within it,
the most fertile of soil
and a top layer
that inhales an opening
for a seed to fall
fall and grow
aboundingly

Everything I plant, grows
and what doesn’t,
grows me

And today’s sun settled deep and low
on its knees to sing
a prayer for me
that came to me
out of the lines I wrote
while taking my pen to the sky
to bring its vast open-wide
to the ground with me

And I write
as easy as I breathe
I write
as deep as that prayer
on bended knee
I write
the story behind my eyes
inside and outside the lines
I write

Black on white
and white across black
when the night takes over
takes me over
to the deepest well I swim in
to dip ink into the blood
of the vein until death
and even then…

I’ll write
in the under of the afterworld
sending letters through the blood-red bark
of a manzanita tree
seeping the poetry of me
from the beyond

Where I need no pen
no paper
no keyboard

Only the mind inside of holy fingers
reaching out to spill
more life-force into the living
more life-force into
the living

That will be me

In every fallen leaf
and every new leaf unfurling
on the bud of a stretched-out branch
spiraling its rooted wings
out to birth me
breathe me
breathe and birth me
into a great wide-open.

From: http://www.rebellesociety.com/2017/11/27/sratchley-poems/

Date: 20??

By: Leslie Caplan (19??- )