red leafed maple tree surrounded by taller green leafed trees

Mathematics

One thousand birds
return, one
by one,
the

tree-peak rattles
with their quest-
ions

Barbed-foot, Electric
-wing, Purple-
tuft, Ratty-
back —

they scratch the
skin, eye
stuck
in

the glow of lighted
bushels.
One,
there, waits
, stick

unmoving, wind,
the smallest
thunder
-clap

; there, one dancing, leaf
to leaf, each
leap a
new

religion:
gods in distance
, time, the nerve
of feeling

height; and one,
too, alighted un-
seen, branch
re-

bounding, feather
released
like a
seed.

This tree is a theater,
container
of wisdoms
gleaned,

calculator
of secret
intrusions.
One

thousand tiny seekers
one by one
communion
here

, a beetle, a
shaded place, they
rest or screech
in that

abundance
numbered by
their visit-
ations;

they give what they
have taken
the great
bush-

el shakes, seconds
recorded
for their
return.