Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Arctostaphylos



“He brought them to the man to see what he would call them…”

Ἁρκτοστάφυλος cleaves the hardest tongues,
Riving body’s sound from spirit’s sense.
Call it manzanita, though, and it hangs
There honeyed with art’s apple-tang recompense.

Obtuse as Adam was, could he not see,
Steward and butler of God’s catalog,
This was his only task - to match and marry
Art and science in living analog?

Put that way, each laden limb hangs the cause
Held in that first apple’s bittersweet bite.
Yes, death shined up our parents’ paradise
Leaving time to bear the shriveled berries
Our parents gathered in a better climate --
Suited well to words they were meant to eat.

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