All It Is
By Alfred Corn
The flexible arc
described by treetop leaves
when breathing currents ripple
a branch to one,
then the other side.
Or the level, quickened swell
that follows a gust over wetlands
home to a million reeds.
Any terrain you find arises from all
that came before: succeeding
event horizons from earlier eras
brought forward by today's considered
impetus to lift the way it looks,
lightly, freely
out toward whatever senses you are there—
breathed into completion, a sphere,
into all it is.
Copyright Credit: Alfred Corn, "All It Is" from Unions. Copyright © 2014 by Alfred Corn. Reprinted by permission of Barrow Street Press.
Source: Unions (Barrow Street Press, 2014)