1630 Nature poems

There hangs this bellied pear, let no rake doubt, Meat for the tongue and febrile to the skin, Wasting for the mildew and the rot, A tallow rump slow rounded, a pelt thin And for the quickest bite; so, orchard bred, Heaviest downward from the shaking stem. Whose fingers curve around the ripened head Lust to split so fine a diadem. There is the picker, stretches for the knife, There are the ravening who claw the fruit, More, those adjuring wax that lasts a life, And foxes, freak for cunning, after loot. For that sweet suck the hornet whines his wits, But husbandman will dry her for the pits. December 1951

On my cutting board, I discovered them, the tiniest of ants, roaming dots of lead. At first, they were too few to classify, hiding under crumbs, these scavengers of leftovers. Admiring their labor, I immediately granted them citizenship, these tailgaters of a kitchen's routines. In Miami, I had no stove, working far from my home. My wife was a midnight call to San Bernardino. While searching for crumbs, especially for the taste of apricot jelly, they fell into a line across my cutting board; I saw it again, saw the line my sixth-grade teacher drew on the board, pointing to each end. While he planted himself on his desk, he leaned his face toward us, telling us in a low voice: "You don't see it yet, you're too young still, but that line in front of you continues infinitely on either side. And if there is the slightest slope in that line, either way, it will slowly begin to sag, then curve and veer and eventually one end will find the other. And lines, lines are never perfect, they are like us, never completely straight. So just imagine the searching that goes on all around us, every day. And to happen on that union is really to witness the most earthly of forms you'll ever get to know. If you're lucky, you'll see that, even luckier if you're part of that union."

The bright drop quivering on a thorn in the rich silence after rain, lute music in the orchard aisles, the paths ablaze with daffodils, intrigue and venery in the air à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, the iron hand and the velvet glove — come live with me and be my love. A pearl face, numinously bright, shining in silence of the night, a muffled crash of smouldering logs, bad dreams of courtiers and of dogs, the Spanish ships around Kinsale, the screech-owl and the nightingale, the falcon and the turtle dove — come live with me and be my love.

Where do you suppose they’ve gone the bees now that you don’t see them anymore four-winged among flowers     low sparks in the clover even at nightfall are they fanning have they gone another place blued with pollen stuck to their bristles waiting beyond us springdwindle is what we call it collapsing neonicotinoids “high levels in pneu- matic corn exhaust” loss of habitat or disappearing disease in the way of our kind      so to speak what do you think they would call it language older than our ears were they saying it all along even at daybreak —

This circle holding the afternoon sky is a lake For summer business measured in stacked pairs Of peeling oars whose dinghies all ship water. Beside it on the trampled grass a carrousel shakes And turns on an Old World instrument The plink and plank and tinkle of a tune Of plunging horses in fresh habiliment. We catch the reins of enamel Pegasus And lift the child until she is astride A purple beast, where, wrapping infant arms About his neck of wood, she whirls in space And gallops off upon the turning wheel. The horse climbs steadily the silver pole Where cherubs hang, then slides toward spinning earth; She sees the moving heaven of winged babes; Rising to meet them, rising, she returns To where our faces, staring in at hers, Fixed, while her orbit whirls and sunlight burns, Recede to artifact as her vision blurs.

I like the blue pill best. Just like a gladiola, its true flower is invisible. The rest is holy. Not like in that Tintoretto where no one knows god is dying, just the usual jingle and squawk from the birdmongers then sudden downpour, a few of the demons dwelling beneath the earth tentatively stir. Not like that. Not tentative. Imploring. The wound tingles. A head of foam forms on the mountain. Into my hand is placed a Mycenaean horse. Into my hand is placed a wax hand. The filament will not break. The fox gets closer. Mint barks. 5% of its life, an ant is active. The rest is holy. Wolfhowl ringtone is holy. Sticking out your tongue in the rearview mirror is holy. Any song that never leaves the lungs, all us animals garlanded and belled.

It would have been a fine path for a lizard to cross but I saw none. Brambles and sweet briar grew on the town side, poppies and wild grasses on the river. Too hot for birds, the ducks were out, in water and mud, and frogs were out, by the hundreds it seemed, saying, Way, Way, in their deepest voices. It was beautiful there but I’d seen beauty and its opposite so often that when warmth broke over my skin I remembered winter, the way fresh grief undoes you the moment you’re fully awake. When she turned two, I asked my young friend what she would serve at her birthday party and she said, Tofu and cupcakes. When she was three and I was very sad she called and said, What are you doing? Picking flowers? She talked in poems like she was dreaming all the time or very old or Virginia Woolf. More often in the first world one wakes from not to the nightmare. When I dreamed I lost my love I willed myself awake because I would not survive the pain again, even dreaming. Which is responsible for that mercy, Doktor, the conscious or the un-? I want the poppies picked and I want the poppies left where they grow. Like looking through the window of a moving train at someone walking up a road lined with poplars and being someone walking up a road lined with poplars. The train and the trees, a shower of petals and bees, sun on the glass and the train perpendicular to the road. Things entirely themselves arriving in the deep double shadows of the grass and passersby.

Phoebus was gone, all gone, his journey over. His sister was riding high: nothing bridled her. Her light was falling, shining into woods and rivers. Wild animals opened their jaws wide, stirred to prey. But in the human world all was sleep, pause, relaxation, torpor. One night, in an April which had just gone by, The likeness of my love stood beside me suddenly. He called my name so quietly. He touched me gently. His voice was drowning in tears. It failed completely. His sighs overwhelmed him. Finally, he could not speak clearly. I shuddered at his touch. I felt the fear of it. I trembled as if I knew the true terror of it. I opened my arms wide and pressed him against my body. Then I froze: I was ice, all ice. My blood drained into it. He had fled. Here was my embrace—and there was nothing in it. Fully awake now, I cried out loudly: "Where are you fleeing to? Why are you rushing away? Wait, wait for me. If you want, I can enter there. Because the truth is, I want to live with you forever." But soon I regretted it—that I had spoken out this way. And all the time, the windows of the terrace had been wide open. The light of the moon poured down; its beauty, its radiance. And I grieved and grieved. I grieved for so long. The tears flowed down my cheeks: tributaries of tears. It was a whole day before I could stop weeping.

The general increase in green accords in me with a growing and specific gravity about — it hopes — to be undone like a bud. What kind of   leaf or the existence of  bugs or the always later rumor of   ravishment by wind or water don’t interest me. Sun does. Come close. Come slow. And look me again in the eyes as you do.

John 3.2 Through that pure virgin shrine, That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon, That men might look and live, as glowworms shine, And face the moon, Wise Nicodemus saw such light As made him know his God by night. Most blest believer he! Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes Thy long-expected healing wings could see, When Thou didst rise! And, what can never more be done, Did at midnight speak with the Sun! O who will tell me where He found Thee at that dead and silent hour? What hallowed solitary ground did bear So rare a flower, Within whose sacred leaves did lie The fulness of the Deity? No mercy-seat of gold, No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone, But His own living works did my Lord hold And lodge alone; Where trees and herbs did watch and peep And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. Dear night! this world’s defeat; The stop to busy fools; care’s check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ’s progress, and His prayer time; The hours to which high heaven doth chime; God’s silent, searching flight; When my Lord’s head is filled with dew, and all His locks are wet with the clear drops of night; His still, soft call; His knocking time; the soul’s dumb watch, When spirits their fair kindred catch. Were all my loud, evil days Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice Is seldom rent, Then I in heaven all the long year Would keep, and never wander here. But living where the sun Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire Themselves and others, I consent and run To every mire, And by this world’s ill-guiding light, Err more than I can do by night. There is in God, some say, A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear. O for that night! where I in Him Might live invisible and dim!