Edward Barker
That Willow in Seed
It’s raining instructions out there,
it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading algorithms
that willow in seed:
raining hieroglyphs, rosetta texts
enigma codes whose rhythms drum
with the language of prayer before prayer
was the language of trees.
And as its seeds fall
with the codex of leaves it is even
raining orchestral scores
each quaver tight packed
in a notation that bees can’t read
but carry, Hermes like, caught
in tufts of hair as they hover aloft
to be played later
by the next generation of leaves
downriver.
it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading algorithms
that willow in seed:
raining hieroglyphs, rosetta texts
enigma codes whose rhythms drum
with the language of prayer before prayer
was the language of trees.
And as its seeds fall
with the codex of leaves it is even
raining orchestral scores
each quaver tight packed
in a notation that bees can’t read
but carry, Hermes like, caught
in tufts of hair as they hover aloft
to be played later
by the next generation of leaves
downriver.
Edward Barker studied medieval history at Oxford. He currently writes film scripts and manages a charity which runs a homeless centre in West London.
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