The morose interstellar
wind's soundless call
shall not ever
seem to be
for poetry—and yet
sheer poetry
shall forever be
the unwavering answer—wherever,
out in the remotest
cold tendril of the galaxy,
even the most
strategically positioned of leaves
on some vast shivering silverbright
alien tree
is somehow at once, both
so casually
and so boldly
jettisoned in consequence,
tumbling
and turning,
flashing
for the last
time, all its color—
as involuntarily
yet irrevocably
as each one
of seven-or-so billion
tiny rainbows
which repeatedly
flair up,
spin out,
then plunge down around
a palish blue
dew drop—at least thirty two
times per second,
each second.
