Anne Jennings Paris

Every tree makes its own gesture,
      a teacher told me as he drew the shape
of an umbrella.
            Does every cloud likewise make
a gesture? Every wave?
                  In this mangrove sea,
there’s a face in every bird-branched tree—
      slanted, gaping mouth,
                  lopsided eye.
It should be easy
            after all this looking to see
things as they are. I’ll try harder.
      I’ll start with water.
            I’ll catalog and remember
how blue on blue changes to blue
            on green, then back again
with the sun.
            I’ll fill up
the way a wave travels toward me,
                  with words, wave tips white,
I’ll write how the light
                  disappeared
      into the edges of all the things we were
and were not, the way
the clouds
      that billow and fold
and hold themselves—
            for they are water too—
cast blue
shadows over the green
      lives they were living—
water over word
branch over bird—
      the way that other poet was wondering
if a thing can be finite
                  and infinite
            at the same time—
      I haven’t seen
you in so long, old friend, but still you fly
      around the edges of my tongue—
      a motif—
            a yellow bird
                  who became a leaf
and fluttered up instead of down.