1630 Nature poems

Her body is not so white as anemony petals nor so smooth—nor so remote a thing. It is a field of the wild carrot taking the field by force; the grass does not raise above it. Here is no question of whiteness, white as can be, with a purple mole at the center of each flower. Each flower is a hand’s span of her whiteness. Wherever his hand has lain there is a tiny purple blemish. Each part is a blossom under his touch to which the fibres of her being stem one by one, each to its end, until the whole field is a white desire, empty, a single stem, a cluster, flower by flower, a pious wish to whiteness gone over— or nothing.

While needles of the evergreen practice a windy chaos, heads of snarled hair; something in the tree longs for old age; bald brown knobs of skull without subterfuge; but it continues with its greedy resinous sexual odors. The odors rise against one another, spurting away from the scaly bark. Along its fingers the tree holds out microscopic traps. Popping bullets of sunlight crack into the subliminal orifices, and the tree thinks, “How exquisite. Is this love?”

Don't bring haw into the house at night or in any month with a red fruit in season or when starlings bank against the light, don't bring haw in. Don't give me reason to think you have hidden haw about you. Tucked in secret, may its thorn thwart you. Plucked in blossom, powdered by your thumb, I will smell it for the hum of haw is long, its hold is low and lilting. If you bring haw in, I will know you want me gone to the fairies and their jilting. I will know you want me buried in the deep green field where god knows what is rotting.

Everything’s been said But one last thing about the desert, And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert, Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great, Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months, The longest months, The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July— During these summer fires, jackrabbits— Jackrabbits and everything else That lives in the brush of the rolling hills, But jackrabbits especially— Jackrabbits can get caught in the flames, No matter how fast and big and strong and sleek they are. And when they’re caught, Cornered in and against the thick Trunks and thin spines of the cactus, When they can’t back up any more, When they can’t move, the flame— It touches them, And their fur catches fire. Of course, they run away from the flame, Finding movement even when there is none to be found, Jumping big and high over the wave of fire, or backing Even harder through the impenetrable Tangle of hardened saguaro And prickly pear and cholla and barrel, But whichever way they find, What happens is what happens: They catch fire And then bring the fire with them when they run. They don’t know they’re on fire at first, Running so fast as to make the fire Shoot like rocket engines and smoke behind them, But then the rabbits tire And the fire catches up, Stuck onto them like the needles of the cactus, Which at first must be what they think they feel on their skins. They’ve felt this before, every rabbit. But this time the feeling keeps on. And of course, they ignite the brush and dried weeds All over again, making more fire, all around them. I’m sorry for the rabbits. And I’m sorry for us To know this.

The Roman candle of a yard light caramelizes the old snow. The glow trespasses the dark hold of December, dimming the view of the night sky with its winter triangle a boy strains to see through the haze, as he lets his jacket hang open, unzipped to the cold. He knows to return through the black cleft between buildings, below electric wires that seem to carry a little train of snow on their slim rails, where he throws the switch that shuts off the bulb on its pole, that opens the dome to a blast of stars in outer space, to the pinpoint of Jupiter, to the constellation of Orion hunting the Great Bear that the boy follows to find a smudge of gray–he can gaze through that peep hole to another galaxy also spangled with radiance from stars that traveled two and a half million light years before appearing as a signal in the rod cells of his eyes that pass impulses through neurons and nerves to his brain that creates images. He draws in a sharp breath, the high voltage power box of his chest hot and humming.

The day has pass’d in storms, though not unmix’d With transitory calm.   The western clouds, Dissolving slow, unveil the glorious sun, Majestic in decline.   The wat’ry east Glows with the many-tinted arch of Heav’n. We hail it as a pledge that brighter skies Shall bless the coming morn.   Thus rolls the day, The short dark day of life;   with tempests thus, And fleeting sun-shine chequer’d.   At its close, When the dread hour draws near, that bursts all ties, All commerce with the world, Religion pours Hope’s fairy-colors on the virtuous mind, And, like the rain-bow on the ev’ning clouds, Gives the bright promise that a happier dawn Shall chase the night and silence of the grave.

rain frog          thorn bug          tent bat along a broken mosaic    a spongy    ever-dwindling path soaring trees    woody buttresses    their massive twisted fins lofty crowns    shoulder to shoulder    climbing lime-green vines    restless palms    one strangling plant    clinging to choking another    a discontinuous canopy of branches and leaves impenetrable    alive and teeming    tangled underbrush the deeply shaded soil    lumpy roots    writhing across the forest floor    low-growing ferns    seedlings struggling for light    jewel-colored hummingbirds insects sizzling and clicking and the dripping water trickling into the tiniest crevices    steamy claustrophobic air    a dazzling bellbird    lost in a shaft of sunlight    a golden eyelash viper sinuous as a vein on a broad-leafed frond    flat worms land leeches    walnut-sized spiders    goliath beetles camouflaged butterflies on dead leaves    parasites    bees leaf-cutting ants atop glorious white lilies    everywhere gripping    climbing    twisting    floating through the trees stilt-like aerial roots    the mouth-amazed pitcher plant buried larvae    fruit-eating fish    the perpetual battle to adapt the ruthless drive    to survive under a punishing sun what grows    bursts forth at astonishing speed    then decomposes to be reabsorbed    so much unknown    unfamiliar unnamed    but before long    the trees seem the same the rocks    every bird track    who would dare think of such a place who would dare        construct one         of his own imagining and be utterly abandoned    in the middle of it all if to be lost is to be fully present    if confusion becomes the only boundary    and then    the decision    [to divide space until a direction is created]    only a madman would begin thought is its own cage    the mind    already anticipating the first step    deciding    every turn will be coupled by disaster    and perhaps    some bestial creature crouched at the center    crying    waiting for our hero    our everyman    our Elijah wandering the earth in rags

And Summer turns her head with its dark tangle All the way toward us; and the trees are heavy, With little sprays of limp green maple and linden Adhering after a rainstorm to the sidewalk Where yellow pollen dries in pools and runnels. Along the oceanfront, pink neon at dusk: The long, late dusk, a light wind from the water Lifting a girl’s hair forward against her cheek And swaying a chain of bulbs. In luminous booths, The bright, traditional wheel is on its ratchet, And ticking gaily at its little pawl; And the surf revolves; and passing cars and people, Their brilliant colors—all strange and hopeful as Ralegh’s Trophies: the balsam, the prizes of untried virtue, Bananas and armadillos that a Captain Carries his Monarch from another world.

Let’s not wrestle with water anymore— Enters until we flexible in its acceptance Persistent in entering through green or brown windowpanes jagged from years of sun Lights out across the street yr candle dances still or flashlight we send signals interrupted by slinging branches Tonight is O.K.— after all you walk by the window tip yr head at the orange sky blue lightning partially our rainbow People not alone in the percussive squalls (Caribbean music) Sole leaf flicked by adolescent wind gone August 25,2005

Light at each point was beating then to flight, The sapling bark flushed upward, and the welling Tips of the wood touched, touched at the bound, And boughs were slight and burdened beyond telling Toward that caress of the boughs a summer’s night, Illimitable in fragrance and in sound. Here were the blue buds, earlier than hope, Unnumbered, beneath the leaves, a breath apart, Wakening in root-dusk. When the air went north, Lifting the oakleaves from the northern slope, Their infinite young tender eyes looked forth. Here all that was, was frail to bear a heart.