The twenty three seedlings don't care about the exactitude
	with which I count them,
for even here where there is nothing but sun
they struggle against each other for light.
Though I scattered the dark black seeds
	with shiny wrinkled surfaces
everywhere in the pot,
survival was a spotty matter,
and, like the galaxies in the sky,
what lived, clustered, and defined themselves
in a struggle against each other for the light.


Two seedlings issuing from the same point
grow to the same height so that one leaf must
remain beneath the other.
If they would grow to different heights,
they could know a separate peace.
But who between them,
or, us, for that matter,
would willingly slow its pace of growth for another?
One dicotyledonous leaf pressed beneath the other,
they dance together in the wind.


Perhaps this is a better fate
than that of those that grew before the rest
and stand alone.
Before I brought them to the roof,
they were starved for light in our back apartment,
and, in desperation,
grew long spindly stems that turned and
twisted with every movement of light that
fell near them in our courtyard kitchen.
Too long in stem,
some lay their unopened heads down on the soil
before the wind of the open roof.
Those that survived, grew with twisted stems
at angles to the earth and themselves
and received the sun on their underside
or else leaned forever on the straight and strong.


One slow to grow outdoes the rest.
While its precocious brethren tremble with the fashions of the wind,
it does not move.
Twisting slightly to catch the full effect of the sun,
it defines the azimuth of the sun by the inclination of its leaves.
Stable, steady, true,
if I had to bet,
I'd bet on this one,
wouldn't you?


		Brandywine
		7/12/98