1630 Nature poems

There came gray stretches of volcanic plains, Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw. Around were heaps of ruins piled between The Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care; And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls One pillar rose up dark against the moon. There was a nameless Presence everywhere; In the gray soil there was a purple stain, And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood— Blood of a vast unknown Calamity. It was the mark of some ancestral grief— Grief that began before the ancient Flood.

Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you

In Golden Gate Park that day a man and his wife were coming along thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world He was wearing green suspenders and carrying an old beat-up flute in one hand while his wife had a bunch of grapes which she kept handing out individually to various squirrels as if each were a little joke And then the two of them came on thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world and then at a very still spot where the trees dreamed and seemed to have been waiting thru all time for them they sat down together on the grass without looking at each other and ate oranges without looking at each other and put the peels in a basket which they seemed to have brought for that purpose without looking at each other And then he took his shirt and undershirt off but kept his hat on sideways and without saying anything fell asleep under it And his wife just sat there looking at the birds which flew about calling to each other in the stilly air as if they were questioning existence or trying to recall something forgotten But then finally she too lay down flat and just lay there looking up at nothing yet fingering the old flute which nobody played and finally looking over at him without any particular expression except a certain awful look of terrible depression

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat; I linger, for the hay is sweet, New-cut and curing in the sun. Like furrows, straight, the windrows run, Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent When, yesterday, the west wind went A-rioting through grass and grain. To-day no least breath stirs the plain; Only the hot air, quivering, yields Illusive motion to the fields Where not the slenderest tassel swings. Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings; A goldfinch dangles from a tall, Full-flowered yellow mullein; all The world seems turning blue and gold. Unstartled, since, even from of old, Beauty has brought keen sense of her, I feel the withering grasses stir; Along the edges of the wheat, I hear the rustle of her feet: And yet I know the whole sea lies, And half the earth, between our eyes.

In Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto.

In a culvert by the airport under crumbling slag wine colored water seeps to this pool the two does drink from: each sipping as the other keeps look out. The skyline is a blur of  barcode and microchip. Even at home we hold the narrowest purchase. No arcs of tracer fire. No caravans of fleeing families. Only this suspicion ripples through our circles of lamp glow (as you sweep the faint sweat from your forehead and flip another page in your novel) this sense that all we own is the invisible web of our words and touches silence and fabulation all make believe and real as the two does out scavenging through rose hips and shattered drywall: their presence in the space around them liveliest just before they vanish.

Gardens are also good places to sulk. You pass beds of spiky voodoo lilies and trip over the roots of a sweet gum tree, in search of medieval plants whose leaves, when they drop off turn into birds if they fall on land, and colored carp if they plop into water. Suddenly the archetypal human desire for peace with every other species wells up in you.The lion and the lamb cuddling up.

Tagus, farewell! that westward with thy streams Turns up the grains of gold already tried With spur and sail, for I go seek the Thames Gainward the sun that shewth her wealthy pride, And to the town which Brutus sought by dreams, Like bended moon doth lend her lusty side. My king, my country, alone for whome I live, Of mighty love the wings for this me give.

I'm out with the wheelbarrow mixing mulch. A mockingbird trills in the pine. Then, from higher, a buzz, and through patches of blue as the fog burns off, a small plane pulls a banner, red letters I can't read— but I do see, over the fence, a man in a sky-blue shirt walking his dog to the beach. He says he missed it, will keep an eye out. Four barrows of mulch around the blueberry bushes, I'm pulling off gloves, and he's back, beaming. "It says, I LOVE YOU, MARTHA. Are you Martha?"

In syrup, in syrup, In syrup we drown, Who sell ourselves With a sparkling smile. Padded with pathos Our winding sheet. The bomb bounded By buxom beauties. Horror gelded By the happy ending. How can we swim Who hold to our haloes? Down we go, down In syrup, in syrup.