1630 Nature poems

The earth has feelings some killed others in its mud and it has lots of mud The earth builds a scrapyard, a sequence of them to tell of this, a seam on its embalmed glabella future galaxies caress The earth knows André Breton, compiles ingenuous personalities in its fevered correspondence Out of its winding sheet rolodex the earth erodes another name, your name Beware, the earth prepares to say one final time, construction eclipses It hoped to say nothing further and then was disappointed, its hope misplaced it knew deep down Say more, you say, the earth had hoped you would Express as little as possible with your furniture, find the little that is as near to nothing as can be The monuments unpictured drift up like watermarks through the odor of the lens You make things happen all the time, says the earth, take my advice look the other way

I know the origin of rocks, settling out of water, hatching crystals from fire, put under pressure in various designs I gathered pretty, picnic after picnic. And I know about love, a little, igneous lust, the slow affections of the sedimentary, the pressure on earth out of sight to rise up into material, something solid you can hold, a whole mountain, for example, or a loose collection of pebbles you forgot you were keeping.

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue The setting sun, too indolent to hold A lengthened tournament for flashing gold, Passively darkens for night’s barbecue, A feast of moon and men and barking hounds, An orgy for some genius of the South With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth, Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds. The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop, And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill, Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill Their early promise of a bumper crop. Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low Where only chips and stumps are left to show The solid proof of former domicile. Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp, Race memories of king and caravan, High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man, Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp. Their voices rise . . the pine trees are guitars, Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain . . Their voices rise . . the chorus of the cane Is caroling a vesper to the stars . . O singers, resinous and soft your songs Above the sacred whisper of the pines, Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines, Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.

In the close covert of a grove By nature formed for scenes of love, Said Susan in a lucky hour: ‘Observe yon sweet geranium flower. How straight upon its stalk it stands, And tempts our violating hands, Whilst the soft bud, as yet unspread, Hangs down its pale declining head. Yet soon as it is ripe to blow, The stems shall rise, the head shall glow.’ ‘Nature,’ said I, ‘my lovely Sue, To all her followers lends a clue. Her simple laws themselves explain As links of one continued chain; For her the mysteries of creation Are but the works of generation. Yon blushing, strong, triumphant flower Is in the crisis of its power: But short, alas, its vigorous reign; He sheds his seed, and drops again. The bud that hangs in pale decay Feels not, as yet, the plastic ray. Tomorrow’s sun shall bid him rise, Then, too, he sheds his seed, and dies. But words, my love, are vain and weak; For proof, let bright example speak.’ Then straight before the wondering maid The tree of life I gently laid. ‘Observe, sweet Sue, his drooping head, How pale, how languid, and how dead. Yet let the sun of thy bright eyes Shine but a moment, it shall rise. Let but the dew of thy soft hand Refresh the stem, it straight shall stand. Already, see, it swells, it grows, Its head is redder than the rose, Its shriveled fruit, of dusky hue, Now glows—a present fit for Sue. The balm of life each artery fills, And in o’erflowing drops distils.’ ‘Oh, me!’ cried Susan, ‘When is this? What strange tumultuous throbs of bliss! Sure, never mortal till this hour Felt such emotion at a flower! Oh, serpent, cunning to deceive, Sure ’tis this tree that tempted Eve. The crimson apples hang so fair Alas! what woman could forbear?’ ‘Well hast thou guessed, my love,’ I cried, ‘It is the tree by which she died – The tree which could alone content her. All nature, Susan, seeks the centre. Yet let us still poor Eve forgive, It’s the tree by which we live. For lovely women still it grows, And in the centre only blows. But chief for thee it spreads its charms, For paradise is in thy arms …’ I ceased, for nature kindly here Began to whisper in her ear, And lovely Sue lay softly panting While the geranium tree was planting, ’Til in the heat of amorous strife She burst the mellow tree of life. ‘Oh, heaven!’ cried Susan with a sigh, ‘The hour we taste – we surely die. Strange raptures seize my fainting frame, And all my body glows with flame. Yet let me snatch one parting kiss To tell my love I die with bliss – That pleased thy Susan yields her breath; Oh, who would live, if this be death?’

The giant water bug can lug His eggs upon his back. He gives them extra care up there And guards them from attack. The mother glues them to the dad, And on his way they stay. But does he ever get a card Or gift on Father's Day?

~ [our] nightmare : no birdsong— the jungle was riven emptied of [i sihek] bright blue green turquoise red gold feathers—everywhere : brown tree snakes avian silence— the snakes entered without words when [we] saw them it was too late— they were at [our] doors sliding along the passages of [i sihek] empire—then the zookeepers came— called it species survival plan—captured [i sihek] and transferred the last twenty-nine micronesian kingfishers to zoos for captive breeding [1988]—they repeated [i sihek] and repeated : "if it weren't for us your birds                    [i sihek] would be gone forever" what does not change / last wild seen—

She sees the mountain upside down. With her long hair sweeping the fallen leaves she swings like a pendulum. From the lagoon at sunset a hundred sparrows fly away. Wishing them back she whistles softly. And downward she falls into the sky.

Sitting perfectly upright, contented and pensive, she holds in one hand, loosely, the reins of summer: the green of trees and bushes; the blue of lake water; the red of her jacket and open collar; the brown of her pinned-up hair, and her horse, deep in the yellow of sunflowers. When she stops to rest, summer rests. When she decides to leave, there goes summer over the hill.

She came to see the bones whiten in a summer, and one year later a narrow mummy with a dusty skin and flaking scales would break apart in her hand. She wanted to see if sunlight still glinted in those eyes, to know what it lighted from a window on the mallow roots, leaf mold and fallen casques. And to ask if a single tongue, one forked flicker in the dark, had found any heat in death: in the closed space and chill of that burial, what speech, what sign would there be. She who walked in the canyon early, parted the grass and halted upon the living snake, coiled and mottled by a bitter pool, unearthed her jar in another spring, to find the snake spirit gone, only a little green water standing, some dust, or a smell. (1974)

came in an envelope with no return address; she was small, wore wrinkled dress of figured cotton, full from neck to ankles, with a button of bone at the throat, a collar of torn lace. She was standing before a monumental house— on the scale you see in certain English films: urns, curved drives, stone lions, and an entrance far too vast for any home. She was not of that place, for she had a foreign look, and tangled black hair, and an ikon, heavy and strange, dangling from an oversize chain around her neck, that looked as if some tall adult had taken it from his, and hung it there as a charm to keep her safe from a world of infinite harm that soon would take him far from her, and leave her standing, as she stood now—barefoot, gazing without expression into distance, away from the grandeur of that house, its gravel walks and sculpted gardens. She carried a basket full of flames, but whether fire or flowers with crimson petals shading toward a central gold, was hard to say—though certainly, it burned, and the light within it had nowhere else to go, and so fed on itself, intensified its red and burning glow, the only color in the scene. The rest was done in grays, light and shadow as they played along her dress, across her face, and through her midnight hair, lively with bees. At first they seemed just errant bits of shade, until the humming grew too loud to be denied as the bees flew in and out, as if choreographed in a country dance between the fields of sun and the black tangle of her hair. Without warning a window on one of the upper floors flew open— wind had caught the casement, a silken length of curtain filled like a billowing sail—the bees began to stream out from her hair, straight to the single opening in the high facade. Inside, a moment later—the sound of screams. The girl—who had through all of this seemed unconcerned and blank—all at once looked up. She shook her head, her mane of hair freed of its burden of bees, and walked away, out of the picture frame, far beyond the confines of the envelope that brought her image here—here, where the days grow longer now, the air begins to warm, dread grows to fear among us, and the bees swarm.