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Sara Teasdale
Only the wind knows he is gone,
Only the wind grieves,
The sun shines, the fields are sown,
Sparrows mate in the eaves;
But I heard the wind in the pines he planted
And the hemlocks overhead,
“His acres wake, for the year turns,
But he is asleep,” it said.
How still the night !
The air, a fragrance fallen
from unseen wings ;
The pine-trunks, stones of some dark
and secret temple ;
Venus, a lantern burning without flame.
But my soul is not still.
The wind blows bitterly ;
The pines groan on their rock-nourished
roots ;
The stars are blotted out.
The sudden April heat
Stretches itself
Under the smooth, leafless branches
Of the beech-tree.
And lies lightly
Upon the great patches
Of purple and white crocus
With their panting, wide-open cups.
A clear wind
Slips through the naked beech boughs.
And their shadows scarcely stir.
But the pine-trees beyond sigh
When it passes over them
And presses back their needles,
And slides gently down their stems.
It is a languor of pale, south-starting sunlight
Marcos (3)
Panting from the climb, eyes
on the trail, the friar
almost runs into
his guide, who stands
with an arm outstretched behind
to stop him short. Then
without turning
his head, hooks
a fold of Marcos’s habit
& tugs him forward like
a trout, breathes in his ear: Mirad.
Look.
Within arrow’s range down
the slope, beyond
the pines with
i pass a black glove stuck
to a white oak beside the trail
and soon i am seeing trees with faces
pot-bellied old maples
great buttressed oaks
limbs spreading in all directions
spared for the shade
they once gave livestock
now filling in fast
with pole timber
and a blue-green haze
of little white pines coming up
an old pasture slowly climbing
toward the bovine clouds
sunset and evening star
that smell of pine comes
from a bottle
off-trail in the woods
in spiderweb season
walking mindfully
a loop of grapevine
rising from the horsebalm patch
the scent of lemons
fall warbler
I pish as if fluent
in bird mysteries
all its offspring
on the other side of the deer fence
the big pine
The bare ground seems
at first an oversight, then
a growing scandal—
all that anonymity stripped away,
the brown earth caught
without its papers,
and the pines like secret agents
sifting every seditious
whisper of the wind.
in a hip song mistress
my address is a waterfall
& grove of young
pines
i amuse myself with stallions
& sport occasionally
in a thin white dress
hiking
out of sight
of pines & view of pines
& long snowfooting woods
ass down to beaver
pond & gathered puzzle
grass
round
slender ash some
beaver cat axed /
hiked out.
my heels
at my heels,ground
spruce,
patches of quartz
in the fields raising up
bright April clouds
bits of snow left beneath
the mountain pine
Come to me in the baby hours of morning . . . when the moon is a full grown woman letting her platinum veil trail from heaven . . . before high hills toss a yellow sun into the sky like a boy with a rubber ball
Let us meet beside a cool tall pine with stars in her hair . . . only a pine . . . the thin green fingers of grass . . . and the small hushed voices of woodfolk
I must sense you as you come to me . . . the warmth of you like a rolling prairie fire . . . scaring flame . . . eating into my mind with sharp hot teeth
Moon slivers, sun parings, a basket of ripened dreams . . . show me these lovely things again . . .