Thorn begins with thorn,
a dead letter from
the Old English alphabet.
It’s an aborted branch,
a weaponized nipple. It draws blood
instead of expressing sap, Mother
Nature red in tooth & claw,
rose-hipped or hawed.
But of course it doesn’t bother the bees,
for who needs a needle
to thread the seamless labyrinth
of the rose?
not friends and family
it is the river and the sea
who give me the best conversation
and as good an account of the particular sand
that I could desire
so sure and well worn
It is spring; a tree flowers.
You may love it
You may hate it
You may fail to notice it.
Nothing matters to the tree;
To flower in spring
Is in the nature of the tree.
white plumed reeds
above yerba buena
-a clear dry smell
but
the fact of Nature
so complexly given
i was no more of it
than you, a
swift mindless carrier beyond
beyond that one
so perfectly real
in wanting, and
no thought then
seemed deeper
white plumed
sea reeds
Wholly absorbed
into my own conduits to
an inner nature or subterranean lake
the depths or bounds of which I more and more
explore and know more
of, in that sense that other than that all else
closes out and I tend further to fall into
the Beloved Lake and I am blinder from
spending time as insistently in and on
this personal preserve from which
what I do do emerges more well-known than
other ways and other outside places which
don't give as much and distract me from
keeping my attentions as clear
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
I walked down alone Sunday after church
To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
He said I could have to bush my peas.
The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
From stumps still bleeding their life away.
The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
To watch me and see what I came to get.
Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!--
All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
And got them off the wild flowers’ backs.
The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.
The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place’s name.
No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.
The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.
To think to know the country and not know
The hillside on the day the sun lets go
Ten million silver lizards out of snow!
As often as I’ve seen it done before
I can’t pretend to tell the way it’s done.
It looks as if some magic of the sun
Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor
And the light breaking on them made them run.
But if I thought to stop the wet stampede,
And caught one silver lizard by the tail,
And put my foot on one without avail,
And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed
In front of twenty others’ wriggling speed,--
In the confusion of them all aglitter,
And birds that joined in the excited fun
By doubling and redoubling song and twitter,
The farm house lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear
A number in. But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
A little perfect owl, size of a sparrow
But an owl by manner of intention
I discerned in a flash on a wee branch
As a seat in a vehicle bore me by.
It had no doubts about being an owl
I repeat, quite certain and casual.
To be what you are with no intention
Or concept of being otherwise,
With only the dimmest thoughts about that
Is something of which I won't philosophize;
There being too much made about that stuff:
So much hyperbole about small truth:
Lies shielded by poor refugees from bluff.
we feed the animals
great grey-white screaming
gulls one sitting on a rock
for hours waiting
he gets fed first
quick chirping chipmunks with sharp
stripes who come up
to our chairs rabbits - somewhere -
shy and snuffling
green-necked geese over the bay
knowing it could make them
too trustful of hunters
for ourselves
our pets we say
liking them to turn to us
to feel acknowledged needed share