1630 Nature poems

I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the levelled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been,—alone, ‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart, ‘Whether they work together or apart.’ But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a ‘wildered butterfly, Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook, A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. I left my place to know them by their name, Finding them butterfly weed when I came. The mower in the dew had loved them thus, By leaving them to flourish, not for us, Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. The butterfly and I had lit upon, Nevertheless, a message from the dawn, That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone; But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. ‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart, ‘Whether they work together or apart.’

This to be beautiful to you Set against all this you know of So ominous, set against it, Overcome, might overcome. This to be beautiful, beautiful, Never alone enough with God Never enough among fountains This be beautiful Spring blue. Leaf love you for this the while I am with you and the while after This earth I am standing on, the Herons and smaller birds possess. This to be beautiful to you The downward fire I spoke of The eel grass, the snowy path, The wide shore, the wide shore. Speak of it, speak it, unceasing, all These lines to the tomb, O turning tree, Set against all this you know of Overcome, will, overcome. Grave tree of the dark plowland under, I will will the whole time to you: Falling water, wave falling, dew Dust, horses, spirits, Spirit.

❖ A hundred red fire ants scouring, scouring the white peony ❖ Fallen plum blossoms return to the branch, you sleep, then harden again ❖ Cuttlefish in my palm stiffens with rigor mortis, boy toys can't love ❖ Neighbor's barn: grass mat, crickets, Blue Boy, trowel handle, dress soaked in mud ❖ Iron-headed mace; double-studded halberd slice into emptiness ❖ O fierce Oghuz, tie me to two wild elephants, tear me in half ❖ O my swarthy herder, two-humped bactrian, drive me the long distance ❖ Forceps, tongs,bushi, whip, flanks, scabbard, stirrup, goads, distaff, wither, awl ❖ Black-eyed Susans, Queen Anne's lace, bounty of cyclamen, mown paths erupt ❖ Gaze at the charred hills, the woebegone kiosks, we are all God's hussies ❖ I have not fondled the emperor's lapdog, whose name is Black Muzzle ❖ Urge your horses into the mist-swilled Galilee, O sweet Bedlamite ❖ Her Majesty's randying up the jewel stairs to find the pleasure dome ❖ Ancient pond; the frog jumps in and in and in: the deep slap of water ❖ The frog jumps into the ancient pond; she says, no, I am not ready ❖ Coyote cooked his dead wife's vagina and fed it to his new wife ❖ I plucked out three white pubic hairs and they turned into flying monkeys ❖ Let's do it on the antimacassar, on the antimacassar ❖ Little Red drew her teeny pistol from her basket and said "eat me" ❖ Chimera: Madame Pol Pot grafting a date tree onto a date tree ❖ His unworthy appendage, his mutinous henchman grazed my pink cheeks ❖ He on top now changes to bottom, Goddess welcomes her devotee ❖ Fish fish fowl fowl, mock me Mistress Bean Curd, I am both duck and essence ❖ Don't touch him, bitch, we're engaged; and besides, he's wearing my nipple ring ❖ Sing sing little yellow blight rage rage against the dying of the light

Now the pink is in the water its wavy edges celebrated by cars & guys with hands in pockets staring out. A woman chewing gum by the window of the train. Which heaves its accordion on & we move. They call it choo-choo because of the faint chooing sound as it starts. It's twee too & dit dit dit eel & screech. All this as the colors change. The buildings they bothered to paint white are pink like someone's awful socks were mistakenly washed. Who owns this insidious red. The trees are black cause that's where the green goes. The girl who chews has fanned her fingers out below the glass and I long to stare at them. To count them one by one as the wires slip by. It's the sultriness, the smokey approach of the loss of light that I love. The homosexual lilac comes & it's ours & everyone like us. The bright compartment of white lights & gleaming flip top & yawns rage on. Outside the Hudson River queerness tools on my brain like a hopeless little wallet of feeling. A clear swipe to night. Everyone in my compartment is tearing now. It's true, I heard two sheets at once get torn to pluck a brownie out. Its smell oozes, & the other one, god knows whose—to park her gum? Her hands are holding her head, my silent partner's & she's sleeping (deep in my gaze.) I look at her knees, the wrinkled foot just above the heel, a yellowish unmoody pink. The trees crowd the house & finally we go fast finally it's not so warm on the train & boats are sitting on purple sand the mountains are bland & blue a woman's sigh is falling off, from on high and into her body. My partner's knees sway. Someone says Proust. Or was it Bruce. The train is rough. Cutting through sweetness every night. I think "time." Then "cargo."

BEEF: We are here between trees, with the tempo of a rosary being strung in a queue of escalating beads— BEEF: It's not quite the count in the countinghouse of my chest but the heart does make an awful attempt BEEF: a tee and a circle wherever it may be there was music coming on BEEF: which though machinery-like moves not in cogs, and never springs, but waves through BEEF: like wired applause for antic backstage buds on the pre-comeuppance buzz; but it fades BEEF: but only after the chorus has pulsed BEEF: it drops off with sudden decision, like fountain water gone dross BEEF: or it reaches the furthest point the branch turns from us, and is for some arc fully quiet... BEEF: until the roulette snaps its jaw and the choir's circuit opens to one BEEF: like a pigeon unhinged, its wings in sudden white-rumped ascent BEEF: unopposed by iridescence BEEF: unopposed by iridescence

I.“If the Night Could Get Up & Walk” I cannot put my hand into a cabbage to turn on the light, but the moon moves over the field of dark cabbage and an exchange fills all veins. The cabbage is also a globe of light, the two globes now two eyes in my saturated head! II.“One Must Try Behind the Hills” Eight Great Dahlias stood beyond the Mountains. They set fire to the Sun in a black wood beyond the Mountains, in the Valley of Vision In the Valley of Vision the Fission of Flowers yields all Power in the Valley of Vision. Eight Suns on Eight Stems, aflame!

Behold the rocky wall That down its sloping sides Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, In rushing river-tides! Yon stream, whose sources run Turned by a pebble’s edge, Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun Through the cleft mountain-ledge. The slender rill had strayed, But for the slanting stone, To evening’s ocean, with the tangled braid Of foam-flecked Oregon. So from the heights of Will Life’s parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill, Each widening torrent bends,— From the same cradle’s side, From the same mother’s knee,— One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the Peaceful Sea!

This is the deepest part of the world. Bird don’t fly here, but there is the sound of wings. The smell, just a struggle in the earth underneath the musty floorboards. Monsters hatch fully-grown from their eggs. Snaky legs indicate chaos. I carry sad omens, slobber down the psychic’s legs to her feet pointed backwards. I roll off the back of a skull strapped on top of a fox who shape-shifts into the irresistible. A Christian, Oklahoma-shaped and melancholic, caught at the entrance of a ditch as the best breath of me tornadoes into the next county.

feathery moths flutter on the screen unbearable sounds of summer oblivious tonight that my reading light is not my day stout bodies cut and bounce near a crack in the screen and beat inside a paper shade sacraments of a monumental natural presence we are drawn forever by the moths to other lights neighbors down the road

At times they will fly under. The dome contains jungles. Invent a sky under the dome. Creatures awake, asleep, at play, aglow: they float – unbottled genii – under the dome. Southern Belle, a splash of black, dusted with gold, dissembles,assembling, acts shy under the dome. Cattleheart, Giant Swallowtail, Clipper: sail, navigate sky high under the dome. Like confetti – a wedding – bits of Rice Paper: sheer mimicry under the dome. Magnificent Owl, in air, a pansy, it feeds, wings up, eye to eye, under the dome. Name them: Monarch, then Queen, last Viceroy. What will scientists deify under the dome? Basking against a leaf: a Banded Orange, displayed like a bowtie under the dome. A living museum. Exist to be observed: never migrate, but live, then die, under the dome. Lips, lashes, eyes. From outside in, do beings magnify under the dome? Lepidoptera. From the Greek:Scale-wing. Chrysalis. Stay, butterfly, under the dome.