revelation

 The sun leapt like like molten aluminum
on the rain-roiled waters below. 
And the trees and the sky luminesced
to the birds, celebrating themselves with a murmur
that nearly drowned out my reverberant feet on the bridge
where I found the small vines. They were feral
and fearless, ferociously grappling the wire-enforced handrails. And I,
false-loving, broke a few tendrils of summer's-end glory
as though it could ever be mine unto me
and I carried them home
to a bright pot with clean water under the sparkling
windowpanes facing the diamond-bold sky
in the silence of curated comfort.
And I waited and waited and waited and waited
and waited. The vines did not thrive. No,
for weeks they were still,
almost frozen, no shoots,
no new leaves and no roots. I began to see
maybe the free things are only made weak by pure ease
and by notice; perhaps I had dealt the death blow
by desire and care. O, beware
the possession that calls itself love.
There are things that no late-coming kindness can fix.
There are breaks that no tenderness covers. It’s never
the same leaf that grows back, the same root that unfurls blind courage –
we are not reborn.
It is never us – just something else. Someone else. 
I stopped waiting and gave them permission to die,
or to come back as other. I could not atone. 
After weeks, they sprang forth – 
small white tendrils. Now sun
glints on new leaves, and soft olive coils of new wanderings burst
from the pot
like a violent peace-offering – even more fearless,
ferocious, too feral not to survive.  They are not
like my other plants bought from the stores. And they still
will not look at or speak to me. But
every opening leaf, reaching tendril, pale root
is a silent forgiving. 
Good intentions, great plans, mighty purposes – breaking
is always a breaking. Some loves
only time can make new.