Slow Precision

Slow Precision

(“And he said to the human race, ‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.’” Job 28:28)

One day soon the soles of my shoes will
match up sure with the beats of my heart;
every path I’ve taken will imprint unshaken the
truth
discovered unhindered by fear of remonstration.

There was a graphic of a leaf, modern and one-dimensionally green;
single strokes made up each vein and the contours open and unconnected.

They were oblong like the blueberry leaf, toothless and smooth. No
shadow or relief, simple passes of the brush across the glass door they
adorned.

With a dozen or more slow curves the leaf took shape, breaking the space
between the glass invisibility.

What had taught my brain to perceive a leaf from an artist’s deft brush?
What had taught her brain besides, that I would recognize her green lines
and fill in the spaces?

And so a leaf grows from the branch of the blueberry, creation’s
perfection, the verdure open to the sky and spotted with indigo;
and so a leaf grows from nature’s design, flows through the human
curious mind, and lives upon glass that I pass from time to time.

The precision in Spring; buds, the leaves and blooms, and final;
the offering of her fruit in blue, the succulent sac where life
is wrapped, a hundred seeds to die in the dark ground again
to begin the precise pace of the next life which one artist
may rewrite again.

Shall I call truth the bush and folly the art? Does Creation own
the patent for awe, or may my fascination be also called
wonder at the works wrought by mere human fingerlings?

Wisdom is the slow precision, and waits like Spring
for the evidence to begin.