© by John Kinsella (b. 1963)

Canto of the Leaves (Empyrean)
Language: English 
Solvent light on leaves.
She barely sees surfaces,
barely breaks through epidermis

to mesophyll, following
prosody of vascular tissue;
she signs with leaf scale, 

rust, mildew, epinasty,
and those fallen in late summer —
dry curvilinear graph paper,

each miniscule frame blown out,
hot easterlies blasting over
vast, naked sandplain,

rocking skyscraper haystacks
to sway breaking wave
and collapse, burst out

like countersignatures.
Leaves flutter down
from dying crowns,

snowflakes she recalls
from frozen regions: each death
perfect and different

as the next. No rain 
will come. No fresh leaves 
burgeon. No gyres

made entire. She 
scatters her verses 
to blaze, to melt, 

crumble always,
the infinitive,
      a future.

Note: the poem is preceded by the following: 
“Così la neve al sol si disigilla;
così al vent one le foglie levi
si perdea la sentenza di Sibilla.”

[Even thus the snow is in the sun unsealed,
Even thus upon the wind in the light leaves
Were the soothsayings of the Sibyl lost.]

	lines 64-66, Canto 33, Paradiso

Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):


Researcher for this page: Gordon Kerry

This text was added to the website: 2016-05-19
Line count: 30
Word count: 109