These are not the tomatoes she wanted,
Heirlooms such as Cherokee Purple, or
Even Brandywines. But the clerk only
Sells what's brought in, finds labels, wands
Each three-inch pot through as she would
A bag of chips or box of three penny nails.
Really, the old woman muses, I should have
Ended my day at the seedsman, but it's not
Near here -- what, twenty miles? So I've
Opted for the discount store again, to buy
These things that hurt my soul: hybrids.
There's this about them, they do produce
Heavy fruits that please her folks and friends
Easily enough, and in larger numbers. But
To her there's something in them lacking.
Old varieties taste of the eyes of young
Along the new trail, built by no one I knew,
acorns had fallen by thousands, more than enough
to leave creatures dazed by too much fortune.
Conkers have tumbled among them, each
experimentally chipped and then rejected
by some set of tiny teeth. Hazel nuts
were better, it seems. Should an adder pass en route
to denning, amid this rich mast, amid
this late fall of goldened leaves of ash
and beech, I might merely step aside,
unalarmed as any fattened squirrel.
Across the pasture, I remember, past
the partly shaded ferns, cowslips, bluebells,
buttercups of spring and summer, where
falling water, catkin-patterned, drowned out
the cygnet's cry in an otter's teeth (witnessed
Did I not
remember?
No, I did not.
So you showed me
the letter, written
in my own hand.
There are whole blocks in New York
Where no one lives —
A district of small factories.
And there's a hotel; one morning
When I was there with a girl
We saw in the window opposite
Men and women working at their machines.
Now and then one looked up.
Toys, hardware — whatever they made,
It's been worn out.
I'm fifteen years older myself —
Bad years and good.
So I have spoiled my chances.
For what? Sheer laziness,
The thrill of an assignation,
My life that I hold in secret.
Leaves, what are you?
Flowers feed on me.
On a hill in Rome
There's my "Magnificent" with the red
Petals and white spike. In Tuscany
My "Passion." And in Paris
The orchid, blue, called by the inhabitants
"The Gendarme." I recall
The night I watered it with tears
In a room that smelled like humus.
And the cactus flowers of Monaco
On the violet-colored hill are unfolding
Near three nuns in their enormous hats
Poised on a rock like gulls or ships that sail
To Africa.
April is gone,
Summer is a second season,
The landscape is now;
There is no reason
For past or future thinking,
The plow lies in the shed,
And the land is dead
To all motion save the slow
Brilliant blossoming of summer.
Only later will the furrowed brow
Perceive the seasons' separations
And remember and understand
Harsh imprint of spring.
Then a scarecrow will look down
Longingly on creation
And with snowfall, fall
I knew by the look
you gave me, then,
I had made again
some sad mistake —
Yet looking back,
I remember only
walking by the river,
bending over pools
for pretty stones.
One such night,
we said, will do
to make us not
have lived in vain:
but these old words,
so many times
repeated, surprised us —
being true.
I remember you
alive, finding
red salmon
in a pool. They whirled,
autumn leaves —
no place to go.
Remember climbing to
the lakes basin?
How, rounding
that last bend, we
were hammered down
by the glory of
summer snow —
Even the gray jays
alighting on our knees
to seek crumbs
could not long bend
our eyes away.
How beautiful
your hands, tapping
my door, thirty
years ago.
Your heart knocked,
a fist against
my ribs. You
have been dead
half those years.
Had I stooped
to gather shells,
I might at least
have made
a keepsake.