The sun shines; by the mailbox, leaves
of the divided birch tree folded, pleated like fins.
Underneath, hollow stems of the white daffodils, Ice Wings, Cantatrice; dark
leaves of the wild violet. Noah says 
depressives hate the spring, imbalance 
between the inner and the outer world. I make 
another case— being depressed, yes, but in a sense passionately 
attached to the living tree, my body 
actually curled in the split trunk, almost at peace, in the evening rain 
almost able to feel 
sap frothing and rising: Noah says this is 
an error of depressives, identifying 
with a tree, whereas the happy heart
wanders the garden like a falling leaf, a figure for the part, not the whole.