Geometries, North Studio, Yaddo

I see a motion, not a form,
In the shaggy spruce beyond my window;
Beyond the diamond panes, the doubled triangles,
Trembling with morning light, I see
A branch trembling where there is no wind.
The bird has taken flight.
I close my eyes and see
The pentagon, which is
The morning-glory and the Christmas star,
Down whose dark throat
Thought travels and is lost,
Form lost in motion where
The guidelines for the bee converge
Upon ephemeral booty, beyond
Ephemeral blue.
How many seasons have I met
These morning faces?

The pentagon.
Braced against space,
All angles true,
Widening out from the square,
Ignoring the simple balance of the paired,
Uneven, and secure,
How it recurs!—
In mountain laurel, apple bloom,
And the wild rose, invisible line
From petal tip to
Petal tip, the five
Doves of the columbine
About a fountain.
It recurs, a form, not a motion,
Flickering in time,
Assuming a meaning without substance,
Haunting Time.

The window pane, a diamond composed of four
Diamonds, shivering in the sun, two triangles
Enlaced becoming Solomon's star,
Doubled as in a mirror, becomes
The crystal snow,
The bee's damp cell,
Unsullied, pure,
As yet unfilled, in the new hive—
These famous hexagons!
I am bewildered with geometries. Pythagoras,
Say, what do you make of all this,—
These living forms, created, uncreated,
Returning, dissolving,
Haunting Time?

 

—Janet Lewis