fine familiar things

I’ve never watched a tree so closely before
paining its way into the various – those leaves
(feigning budness, imitating blooms) were
little, white fists for weeks, and I was fearful
when that freak sun-snow day came.

They looked burnt from the cold
I saw death, or at least a dead-end
for those flowers. It’s a chestnut tree,
they said, and we didn’t know
if edible or not. The sky isn’t

heavy, but it would be nice to have
an excuse. Did you lose water?
(thinking of the pipes of
the kitchen and bathroom competing)
- but it sounded like asking

whether all the youth had run away.
Down man-legs and into these old floorboards
here. We laughed. It would be nice
to blame the weather, but spring comes and the
clocks have all been changed.

In the Hof, fingers open like asking
to scoop the light into bowls of feathers -
green feathers. Soon the tree will fly
like a bird into that gentle season
on the brittle cusp of which we hesitate.

Trains run yellow here at mirrors.
One slides into the platform, and people’s legs,
standing quite still, appear to hurry, appear
to speed into liquid. This city moves so many
beings, at intervals of three, five and nine minutes.

Dogs travel on buses.
Ceiling lights resemble snowballs.
Spring comes, as normal. And certain
fine, familiar things darken, and
once acknowledged, remain conspicuous.