Xcp:  Streetnotes: Winter  2003
streetnotes  Winter 2003 xcp

 
 
Naomi Long
 

Mathematical Park
 
 
 
 
 
In the piecemeal dawn, I cut a rough swath through a loose choreography of trees, stamp underfoot sterling tips of grass, upset the composite elements reticulate in every detail: root, stem, bud, spore, the silent engineering of cells, the hermetic architects of honeycomb, wood-snail, bone-rot, laboring all at once, rearranging the view as I walk from one end of the park to the other and back, and count each addition, each subtraction superstitious, compulsive as if I could ever solve the equation of cloud and fern, root and nail, torso and hand my hand when it pushes aside a leaf specially designed to extend, slightly, from the branch, and catch the vital nutrient of a star pooling random and green at my feet.

 
 


  (c)Naomi Long 2003


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