Grain of Truth

Wood sings in a candid language.

It sings to the furnace of the eye,
revealing its orphic folds:

out of a chair, a table, a robe,
the veritable layers emerge,
sartorial, scrupulous,

a kind of cambium diary
formed in the limbs or the bole of the tree,

a lowdown told in ballads
of rift and burr,

told in far-off galaxies,
in auburn and honeycomb,

told in the work of a frost crack
or a sun scold,

told in a carbon fabric
that flies, chatoyant,
from the spool of time,

told in the dark, tempting feathers
of partridge wood,

told in the dance of maple flame,

told in cloud,

told in bird's eye,

told in the caricature faces
that arrive in a play of knots,

told around mirrors,
in lost walking sticks,
on doors that never open,

told in the singing timber
of broken violins,

as generous to the spirit
as quinine, cinnamon, or aspirin.