for Dickie

You taught me to see light
falling through a broad leaf
from the underside,
its green veins illuminated
like a manuscript,
shining with lifeblood,
and the lacy fingers of ferns
hanging shaggy in rainforest
damp, droplets poised
just so at the tips,
pointing to something
else to be looked at
closely, to be studied
in the eyeblink it takes
for a shutter to open
and close, to capture
what many people bypass,
then praise after they
see it spring to life,
framed, hanging—
when they call it
art.