Page 15 - Contrast2009

l I~

theb"otanist jI
.' ..

devon brackbill

He remembers a time evening,
when every blade of grass,-
sparkling in the dewy morning

and cas~in~ a ~risp shadow iq the pellucid
had a name. -

He_ knows :that there were days
_when every toadstool,

drinking deeply from the newly mulched loam,
and dodging sun~bolts from a sleepy sovereign,
formed a grammar
in the, language of his, heart.

There was a time
when every leaf,
frbm greening bud
to mellowing fodder
was an individual in h i am.i nd ,
when carefully he would mark,
without a pen or paper,
the slow transition when
throbbing veins
became lifeless and brdtt Le , '
,and when,str,etchi,ng, fuzzy branches
became bare mon~ments;

But today, for the first time,
he can only s~ee
'a genus and a species,
-etched' in The World of Botany,'
,in a dead language
.'not; spoken by human tongues-
or human hearts.

And he thin_ks the massive tome of botany
has become a maSsive -tomb,for the botanist
and the ba re monument, the tree,'
marks not the end of its Le ave s ,
but the end of his life.

., ",'