Alan: A binocular poem, that tries to see the land as do those whose lives depend on it and also as the Eden we all want to make for ourselves. Which will it be?
Lupines
Farmers hated ‘em –
cow-killers, milk destroyers –
roots halfway to Hades.
Spent their lives
grubbing ‘em up,
like to bust a gut.
Other folks loved ‘em,
thrilled by candy drifts,
cooing “Maine,” “June.”
Stuck ‘em everywhere,
spread ‘em around,
like damn Miss Rumphius!
Our hippie neighbor came back
with a new girl, sullen,
silent, not good for much
we determined. It didn’t last.
Still, she planted lilacs,
a maple the snowplow
whacks every winter,
lupines. The lilacs
beside his long-empty shack
bloomed again this year.
The maple sprouted once more
from the ground. The lupines,
scraped along by the plow,
sneak farther and farther
down the lane
towards our old, inherited pasture.
I can’t help it, pick a stem
for the table,
feel the ground shudder
with the quick fury
of the admonishing dead.
Nancy: Bless mothers, librarians, writers, painters, museums, memory, and dawn.
June, When My Crown Was Dandelions
Shimmering June
takes Botticelli's hand
steps out
into morning
pearly mist
June, wreathed in
translucence of peony
gauzy heart of the arbor rose
That was then
before the stars were stones
then, when they walked with us on earth
one of the thens
when I could take Venus by the hand
on a June morning
when the skies were roseblossoms
And now
roseblossoms still
mist
mist the pale pale pink of the shell
Venus rising
June takes my hand
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