Apical Dominance
This diagram, drawn from observations
of a pruned and active force, describes the pattern
born to every cell that opens, and each
who is cause or casualty of empire, reckoning,
and each who is good before an unnamed god,
and who sleeps and wakes by a season--however brief,
as in our human day--each who forms
a capsule or a bud, and spells from her ovary essence
the blueprint, split in indecision, but peaks at the throat, by bract,
ceasing to fire and course through will of exile,
this pact, instilled. Is it peace? Will the silent sin be given
in death; that which eludes the intrinsic circle,
riding by way of exodus, its entrance--
This all will end. And in its shift is the arrangement,
present at each node which feels, with drought displaced,
having waited for inflorescence to amend the circuit
before breaking from the gates of the system,
the trigger: cease or completion of the terminal bud,
whether accidental or purer in intention, severance,
aborted or flowering.
Have I said too much?
The cause is writ. The lot is bought and tended.
And yet, the vegetable cycle is never secure,
depending, as we each depend, on comet combustion,
on the lunar sea of atomic traction, on these mystery momentums
graced upon us by a common source. . .
whose cause we invent and enact, as culture,
and bore eternal, as worth and trophy.
It is pleasant to have faith in intention,
to set as proof the awe and gratitude, entering in.
To attach yourself to the spiral, that which continues and whirls,
which outward, asks, throughout us. Pleading onward
with praise and action the soul's commitments.
It is freedom to commend, not speak,--
It is freedom to arrest the flux and breed,
the limbs of your bodies outheld,
and to need among the labors of life some of that which longs
and holds, which bores, which brings on meaning, first,
then language, to pass despite distortion, as utterance,
the developments of kindness. Concern yourself as children.
Purify by way of act and name, by spirit of example,
so that the boundary is created in unison and isn't owned.
The apex is a replica by design, but seems a reality.
It extends from us beyond the curtain and is seen.
It directs and reveals itself so that we believe in excellence. And only then,
and only after their star hours are gathered and spent
will we recognize ourselves as fitting the surge
and breathe our directions outward in reason
to fulfill our promise to that which we believe, unending.
And looking down, finally, at the height assumed,
will you recognize yourself as one whose cause you've carried
all along, whose entirety is available, probable,
turning to the sun, and the burning, and the flower.
