by Allan Briesmaster
The words do not attach to things. – Emerge
is what they mean to do. Describe, alone,
and you will only skim, extract, abstract
and circumscribe. So the full green, in leaf,
comes as a rhythm, a vibration. Pulses.
Blooms in the eye through breathing air. Sounds out
its colour all-across its range of tones.
Green verdure, flickering up at sky, or stilled,
consistent with the whims of the drawn wind.
… How many tinted hues, out of the basal
chlorophyll. Recessive, into near-black shade,
and shining, promontoried, blanched in sunlight:
offering us images of vivid splendour
or a calm radiance, while back, behind,
inviting refuge, gloom and mystery
in an indefinite mix. From which, birdsong,
well interspersed with virtual dim silence
(but for the shush of gusted, sailing boughs)
breaks, or shimmers momentarily.
Along its edge then floats the ecstasy
of plain white butterflies, lone, and in pairs
that verge for a brief bout of aerial combat
or courtship-gesture – until, just an instant,
I am with one, in flight, before my words.
— from Juniper Volume 1, Issue 1