A Cubic Wood (A Longer Poem) Poem by Nathan Coppedge

...
Suffice a cubic wood
a step beyond less real
the moment all itself
until tired of the ideal
...
It would be all
if all was what I felt
the itch of my heart though
yearns to take a step
...
even if its leaves close up in death
...
Suffice a cubic wood
a woman with her horse
once stood in it
as impartial as I
...
Whether these winds
are the only open light
in the insistent air
sight caught on phantasms
...
sallow miasmos
...
Suffice a cubic wood
the boughs a brittle gild
the barky grain
seeming carved by rain
...
The shallow moment stood
as though a puddle
insouciant of the passerby
an empty surface, forgotten glass
...
time had not remembered to erase

Suffice a cubic wood
the shallow ambers
lightly melding
as though a garden door

Concealed obsconding legs
a thief of care
gone beyond the transfixed men
their brows bowed in sand

The leaves, like grape leaves,
caught in a youthful hand

Suffice a cubic wood
the trees aligned to some implicit grid
the groves of mellow spiked with some
cruel thorns
chestnuts and acorns fallen dark
from the low canopy

trails of would-be thoughts
trailing off
making imprecise paths
spontaneous leaps

over clusters of misbegotten weeds

Suffice a cubic wood
an eye upon an eye
an hour upon an hour
light too sweet to drink

bliss suspended
in a picked field
the mind incredulous
with the wrong enough

an absolution, empty of rhyme empty of
certain fear

Suffice a cubic wood
a mad towering fist of wind
standing in the clearing
with branches deferring each to each
insects, air-borne dandelions
fearfully carried

The heart hollow yet warm
attention molded to a song
more felt than heard
quiet imprecise paths

thoughts untangled in a tangled wood
or mind forgot

Suffice a cubic wood
standing above a standing man
a still life, every flower a flower
every man a man, yet no hand moving

Thought bleeding or spilling
painting the surface
exhileration thrown out
replacing inward thoughts

all thoughts caught on gilded branches

Suffice a cubic wood
the mind recalls no else
it stood and understood
beside the barky branches

the mind a mindless mood
the gentle grass
intimate with the sun
the hand strewn helpless on the dew

the body fallen like a tumid stone

Suffice a cubic wood
hair dangled on the roots
skin's mole beside the earth
skin's wart beside the toadstool

Deferrent dreams, mind caught in sand
spilling thoughts, like a river through
the land
a land that man forgot
remembered by forgotten men

thought's spool entering a subterranean
bath

Suffice a cubic wood
vervain and veridian
arch thoughts sprung from
caked shadows

Eyes exploring the knitted daylight
like gentle fingers
bare feet suspended in a field
as though over a precipice

the deep beyond the buried roots

Suffice a cubic wood
temperament looking on the clear
like peering eyes on some dry storybook
spare iconic trees, amongst variegate carpets

hard ambers,
irreplaceable bent forms
carved by wild logic
a stroke for every gnarled branch

as though erupting from a silent heart

Suffice a cubic wood
trees escaping like tendons
eclipsed in mist
the body a forgotten flower to the mind

Dwelling apart from that air
rarified from the real
dwelling around its total form
the world forgotten for a spell

certainty a trail of mist

Suffice a cubic wood
bold blunt columns
smudged with shadow
breath sifting leaves

The sky trailing ghosts
bulky closets of night
seemingly deformed by silver
shadow descending like unfelt silt

stars winding like lost ships

Suffice a cubic wood
withstanding like a bitter sap
a night's trespass
the trunks impossibly still

My limbs stiff
a forgotten man
reembarking bodily
awakened to the morning

Stepping, molting from the cubic stand
towards where the light meanders, in further
fields.