The Knot, by Stanley Kunitz

I’ve tried to seal it in,

that cross-grained knot

on the opposite wall,

scored in the lintel of my

door.

but it keeps bleeding

through

into the world we share.

Mornings when I wake,

curled in my web,

I hear it come

with a rush of resin

out of the trauma

of its lopping-off.

Obstinate bud,

sticky with life,

mad for the rain again,

it racks itself with shoots

that crackle overhead,

dividing as they grow.

Let be! Let be!

I shake my wings

and fly into its boughs.

From “Passing Through” by Stanley Kunitz (W.W. Norton: 176 pp., $12)