The underside of the miniature plane

Elizabeth Smither

The unseasonal season has turned half
its leaves to autumn and half its twigs

to bare winter. Against a sky that
has poured greyness out for a whole day

I look up into structures so intricate
and marvellous I think the Eiffel tower

is the merest stick drawing and the stars
(if I could see them) spaced

for rudimentary learning for
a mathematical amateur. Two seasons

(and four) hang about the tree and all
the structures we have yet invented

are underneath in this complexity
so alive it is still working itself out.