“Vantage” by Alan Shapiro

A poem by faculty member Alan Shapiro is the featured “Poem-A-Day” for Monday, April 21, 2014, at Poets.org:

Vantage

From where I watch, there are no highest leaves,
no leaves that don’t have over them more leaves
impeding what they open up and out for,

darkening downward as they feed on green
diminishments, as if dark, if it still
can darken, could be itself the light

the darker leaves beneath are hungry for.
From where I watch even the shade hungers
And is hungered after—all along the chain

past bark, root, leaf, ghost speck of leaf,
microbial scrapings, and beyond them, flakes
chipped off of flakes off of a now-

…

Finish reading online at Poets.org.