I've left tea on the outside table
a baffle for whatever wanders the woods.
Lance-shaped willow leaves fall
and alter the prescription, the drowse
of the day and the mind with confusing pall.
What lured these leaves from their mother-branch
to my poor care in the orphaned hour?
What strange embroidery can quicken them again
into their summer suits of pride and motion?
Autumn's alchemist brings gold, then lead.
Here is the potion, the breviary, the wine
fermented from pomegranates, swayed by tannins.
My faith is in teriac and the reading of leaves
in my baked clay mug and the struggling lungs
of my patients un-greening like harvested sheaves.
_________
for Sunday Muse #182.