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The Hollow (35)
after failing
this year to blossom
Clintonia leaves
seedhead
the two sterile florets’
showy bracts
the mountain road’s
one straight stretch
turning to look back
headwater stream
a dark and slender
mink’s road
Poèmes sur le thème : plant
Poèmes sur le thème « plant » sur Poets.by.
The Hollow (30)
standing beside
its toppled twin
cucumber magnolia
beneath the white oak
200-year old charcoal
crumbles from the bank
the bright red club’s
rotten handle
jack-in-the-pulpit
jack or jill
transitioning to female
from the pulpit
The Hollow (25)
leaning
this way or that
forest-dwelling goldenrod
not a mere patch
but a stand
the black cohosh
fairy bells
berried
under their leaves
naked-flowered tick trefoil
“leaflets three” but only
the name itches
The Hollow (13)
downy rattlesnake
plantain leaves
always a start
still twisted
from its rush to leaf out
lady’s-slipper orchid
the blue-headed vireo’s
vireo vireo
sounds blue now
pale pipes scorched
and straightened by sex
corpse plants
Green house
A rank yard
and part green in my parlor
where I am out
of land and pleased
to house the dirt.
Herbaceous
Goatweed goatweed how you brighten
my waste places with your yellow stars
blossoming in the deep space between
my shoulder blades, where the sun’s
too weak to rise. Like any lover
you make me dizzy and anxious, I can’t
get it up any more and you play
badly with other medicines, such as
dust and pillbugs. Call me a shaman
fundamentalist, but my dry bones
have never felt more possessed of life.
In the otherworld I’m growing a green husk.
Stay
Stay with me,
My Fruitful Plant.
Till your leaves become yellow
and wilt.
Till everything starts to shed,
One by one,
Falling much more slower than a feather.
Till a spot of rot starts to appear on you.
Till your bear the fruits from the seeds
I planted.
Deadheading
Why did you pick me?
knowing that you would
later on struggle to take care
of me the same way i took care
of you.
No matter how many times
i told you,
you never bothered to dehead me
the same way that i deheaded you,
so that i can, like you, maintain
my appearance
and blossom.
Wither
I often ask myself,
am i wilting
because i am past my prime?
or because you did not
give me the one thing
that i need to survive,
even though i begged you
countless times to provide me
with it.
join
A plant in between my fingers, caught on fire.
I told myself I would never fall down this hole
But we can't all be as strong as we wish
Maybe one day I'll live my day dreams..
But that day isn't today
Rhythm
The rhythm of the work is to set down
Her padded bench, a flat, and trowel at the
End of a bed and drop as if in prayer,
Reach for the trowel (bent for her old
Hand at right angles), dig, then grope for a pot.
You may see each hole is deep and wide enough
To exactly take the root ball. She carefully
Holds this in her shade, tips the damp
Mass in, packs with trowel, repeats all -- three
Or four times -- then stands. Behind her, some
Four plants glow green in any six feet of bed.
The rhythm of this work, when best, resembles
How monks or nuns in supplication glide
Easily to the floor, centered, unconcerned
With body or mind, then rise, then glide again,
Outcomes not sought, nor merit earned.
Allison Poem 18
With your return
the veil of dreams
is rewoven
the cardboard cutouts
of the city
return to normal
the coldness
at my back
is displayed
and I've remembered
to water
my plants.