Vertumnus and Pomona

Space, by definition, is any line or surface that connects points at a certain time.
—from Scientific American

Faint etchings, fragments of languages we never
Learned. Distantly, I watch you cutting and pruning.

A storm approaches, and I turn into the dusk,
To the pub. Meanwhile, cosmologists debate

The universe’s demise, how old it is, and
Its shape. In what mind or manner do we measure

The curves of ideas, of outlines of fingers
On the skin, of releasing the tongue from the throat?

GIs wrote their location in cipher—letters
In the letter home. Perhaps, in the street-corner

Sermons, we, too, can find our language. Neither time
Nor space is the compass of our conversation—

From distances my words cannot reach your ears.
You tend your orchard; I watch you pruning your vines—

The fruit lustry, fragrant, there. In the day’s margins,
Scribbled notes become cryptic. The trinkets, tokens,

And photographs we carry are the addresses
Of the people we were, flourishes in journals.

You can fold space and time in your hands, if you like,
And dream a subtler dream than mine, but I speak

Hieroglyphs, and you understand only pi.
Between wind and eyes, the etchings lose definition.

We cannot hear the sermon, cannot break the code.
Language becomes theory, chaos, and conjecture.