leaf and her form

i have no poetry
for the echo of
the real, the form
of it and itself.

what can be love
if not a leaf, but also the shadow
of the leaf that was found
beside herself one day?

this fallen thing
that came to rest
here and placed her essence
nearby, thus leaving her
slightly removed.

that love in her various
natures is the thing sensed
- by smell or touch or sound
or taste or seen by these ruined eyes -

but also the thing above that
and therefore beyond it,
or in this case
beside it.

i was merely walking,
with no aim except not
backwards, when i
came to her this way;

her and her stronger self,
the shaken leaf
left to decay, dropped from
a congregation of

leaves whose cathedral
above me had not yet
released all its spreading
palms.

the perceived next to
the real is how i came
to understand what i
was witness to.

because what i have
come to know is that
both live as attracting
opposites, one the

same as the other,
but the other more
pure and more purely
elevated

so that i could believe
in the truth of the one
by witnessing the
shadow of the other.

which is to say
that i have sensed
love but not confirmed it until
just in this transitory moment.

i have lived among
it everywhere, but
now, only now, have
gained faith of its reality.

something does this for
us, gifting glimpses
of gold in the veins of
life to keep us true.

love is a leaf
gone to earth,
and love is what it is, and
best viewed as what it is without.