Hours of Banana Leaves
I will spend your absence
upon some false occasion
I cannot grasp or question
to make a presence
watching the broad
furled banana frond
as still as the hour hand
spread slowly wide.
If I watch the leaf
heedfully expand
to shred in the humid wind
I may not perceive
wrapped in a leaf hour
how far and long you stay
or think how happy they
are where you are.