I Rose For Emily

 

Urgent to divest—

Oppression and undressed —

Afforded scant relief

By grocery belief —

To bed—too soon—and met

Specimens of regret —

Leaves like colored labels —

Descending on our tables.

Good Morning, Betws-y-Coed

 

Here is the world on fire,
Sun or flames at morning,
Roofs ignited dawning,
Cries in bedrooms, smoke
At short-order breakfast windows.
Pity the children, widows,
The crippled aunts with one hand free,
And the anxious dogs barking, Liar! Liar!
And the diving ducks breaking the lake.
All the new men aflame,
Nothing the sun will see
Set them aboil and aburn.
Look, from laburnum and briar
Smoke is getting away,
And the sun clears the jacketed hills,
And the wild aunts concluding their tea
Pray for rain and cull their banished yards.

The railway is escaping.
The broken chapel rooftop, sleeping
Doves enough for level spirits,
Shines as good as gold.
Water is on the move.
The aunts are dressing, according to their merits,
And the roadway coils into the wood,
At least as good as gold and old
Enough for kestrels born to love
A tamed town, a tired, to remove
The sun with drapes and scrub the singing floor.
You hear, the slam of every door,
And the aunts march, visiting the cold.

Housebroken

 

The houseplant leaves the room. It twirls a leaf

Around the door to see who's coming. Green

The grass outside the window. What it's seen

Of vegetation grown and come to grief

At mowers' hands is not to be believed.

The ficus argues, "Leave a leaf deceived.

No one who's known is better off." But Phil-

Odendron needs to know. He snakes the hall,

Heads for the door. He gets there by the fall.

The frost has stolen all the chlorophyll;

He dies upon the jamb, cold and enlightened.

The leaves lie blown in stacks, then wet, then whitened.

I feel a moral coming on. The sun

Will give us back our green. Out of the mire

Come kudzu with the energy of fire

And clover till the field is overrun.

There will be philodendron by the dozens

In music rooms. But not him. Just his cousins.

Men are like fish, you say. There'll always be

Another in a minute. I have no

Idea, but, Filly, if you let me go,

There will be more, but never more of me.

The dying plants are rich in latter plants;

But Philodendron gets no second chance.

The Sight of Snow

 

The fat squirrels have surrendered.

Nuts, I say: they had no other course.

The chickadees complain until they’re hoarse.

I feel for them as though they had been rendered,

Or would if I were nature’s friend;

But I’ve made other, safer plans for fall.

I shall not be at home when ill winds call.

Spring is the goal here; winter is the end.

The trees are sure they will awake.

The frozen grass has done it all before.

Clematis clings to hopes there will be more.

But they're all botany. There's no mistake.

No cyclic show for me; but, oh,

I think of warmth and someone whom I knew,

Someone who spoke in cadences, as you

Burst with excitement at the sight of snow.