Hilda Raz

What's the bird ratio overhead? Zero: zero. Maybe it's El Niño? The storm, was it bad? Here the worst ever. Every tree hurt. Do you love trees? Only the gingko, the fir, the birch. Yours? Do you name your trees? Who owns the trees? Who's talking You presume a dialogue. Me and You. Yes. Your fingers tap. I'm listening. Will you answer? Why mention trees? When the weather turned rain into ice, the leaves failed. So what? Every year leaves fail. The cycle. Birth to death. In the night the sound of cannon, and death everywhere. What did you see? Next morning, roots against the glass. Who's talking now and in familiar language? Get real. What's real is the broken crown. The trunk shattered. Was that storm worse than others? Yes and no. The wind's torque twisted open the tree's tibia. Fool. You're talking about vegetables. Do you love the patio tomato? The Christmas cactus? Yes. And the magnolia on the roof, the felled crabapple, the topless spruce.

Some problems of self-loathing, worry: the thumbnail blotched in a bank box door grows out, three-quarter moon marrow spot filled out with white bruise travels down my thumb at regular speed, so when I glance down it's what I see left of center, not the odd breast, the malformed scruff at head, the old thought leaking pain on the pages from my brain, which ought to be gainfully occupied with rain as an emblem of loss and gain, and is not.

The soaked books lip open in piles. The shelves stoop, slough paint. The doors, their locks sprung, hinge air open to weather, gulp rain. Something here enters the trees. If we believe in ghosts, white pearl shadows the batten and boards. Rust runs on the shelves. The sounds on air wail, a nail in the thumb. Stickers underfoot poke holes. In rafters, wings or the suggestion of wings rend air, whoosh of rubbish, burnt rubber hooks for skeleton elbows. Ash, dry sift through moist fingers in a room where everything's mold.

Lear's five nevers over the fool hanged, and Cordelia and Lear dead at last, Edmund reported and yes he was loved by both evil sisters, so what. I'm awake in the dawn. Cold stone floors. The cat. His father loved him too, I tell my son on the phone, my son just married. Let him cleave to his wife. Let my old flesh resume its boundaries, let go. No divisions of the kingdom. Will they write of my courage killing the snake? We know the dreamy answer to that one. Honey tea swirls us sweet; never fear the village fair, lights stay on all night. Tea bags bottomless coffee cup. Ashes in the grate sweeten the garden provender. Clay. Ripeness is all. The fool lives on, my left elbow's cartilage feather.

Bargain tarts, raspberry, goose, he said, don't write about that surgery, women who have hacked off write all parts and natures of women who lose food in the bottom parts of refrigerators, onions, scallions, sour tomatoes, tiny cocktail weenies lost in the airless dark write When you give over your breast to cancer, for God's sake don't write about it. Write about silliness, holding hands in sandboxes, small girls playing fudge- and-find-me-alley-tag at dusk, Rochester, state of pubescent, New Yorka roonie. ...day I learned to drive aimed car at horizon and floored it. Got there. God in color, no cable, firsthand. Going and coming back I thought I'd live. Not much for visions, still at sink soaking pinkies in sweetalmond suds, I heard Mom. Come on home, she said. Scared the witless bejeebies out of me. Next day I opted for surgery. Cut that mama off and saved my life. Big daddy surgeon said right on the mark, sweet honey. It was done. He's got a girlfriend works at his office, don't you know, she thinks he's licorice stick swinger. I caught them hugging in the mimeo room. Ain't nothing to it, he said, rolling his cup of a palm over the scar. Mmmmmm-mmmmm, this hillock is a sweet raisin, roll over baby, pour me out. Okeydokey. What came next in the woods, woolly dark trees don't give a fudge if what's hugging them hard dents in two places. I hang on for dear life. Filled pockets with seedpods, got bulbs I shoehorned into clay pots for life's sake. Nevertheless the disc shone hard, or didn't.

New life! Will he toe out like Dolly, like John? Will her eyes be fires? Blue and green, like Papa's, the ocean at the shore? Will she sing in the bath? Play piano in her diapers? Will her heart leap at large machinery? Will he say, "Dribe dribe," to his daddy, entering the tunnel? Will his hair be red? Will her hair curl? Will her little face have the circumflex eyebrows of her mother? The pointed chin? Her hair be fair, bright blonde? Will she frown at the light by the river? Oh, let her head fill with Greek Owls, her mouth with honey wine. Let his hands cup the keys, the air of the studio filling with sound, the crunch of cornflakes, the sift of raw sugar on the tongue, the great chords. And let the parents be fierce forever, Lord, as You are, exacting price and penalty for Your gifts, so they grow strong and joyous, blessed by the memory of the black car, open to air, chosen by a child in token of the power they give over, their lives in service to new life, the great melt of petals under snow, the green rising.