THE LAUREL

Frail winter sunlight cast thin highlights on

A curly headed laurel by the street

Outside the San Francisco Concourse Center

Where Mexicans unloaded edgy trucks.



My mind, in passing, gnawed upon the leaves

With layers of thought spread out on tones of green

Around the living sphere between a circle

Or bricks and high noon’s sun in spreading gray.



About the trunk illusory perspective

Dissolved as all things blended into one:

The road, the buildings, people, signs and poles

Unfolded from within yet kept their outlines



Becoming leaves upon an infinite laurel

Time flowed in knitted circles round the trunk

With light and dark as waves upon the leaves,

Two different sides of one unending current.