Leaf, burning
not dying.
Was this how Moses found
God
burning out a space
at day's end?
Trees, by the trunks and leaves,
alight
as if amber, as if glass
pulled
from the glassblower's furnace
- the quick emergency
of bird calls.
And why would birds not
cry out,
why would birds,
the turquoise-backed beetles,
spiders curled in the rusty hinges
of trees,
not know that all things are
at an end
when the splendid face,
burning itself
into the heart of the world,
is the face
that, disappearing,
makes a bird,
a person, cry
I am here?