Secrest Arboretum,
My Tenth Year in Wooster
Tamarack, Norway
Spruce, Boxwood, Bourne. Yes,
I too am a transplant, the journey
to Ohio, the tongue
of the root system tangling
as it learns a new word for soil.
The vowels between the skinny leaves
and pliant needles. The consonants
like slight grooves in the bark.
Who knows the stories these trees
could have had? The Siberian Larch,
its fate sunk down in Ohio
in 1915, just escaping the Russian Revolution,
the silent parade of men beneath its branches
with guns pointed at the backs
of other men. The Norway Spruce
forming the great backbone of a house
destroyed by saturation bombing. The boxwood’s
deeply concentrated grain
hard to chop down, though its branches
will gladly sacrifice themselves
to the topiarist’s delight.
The tamarack brooding on the edge
of a cranberry bog.—And Bourne?
One ancestor came in 1838 to Ohio
to build a canal, but left soon after
to farm in Illinois. And his great-
great-grandson comes in 1988
to settle here, ten years later,
on the first green grass of late March
to look up in the branches
of another type of family,
its arms opened in welcome,
in blessing.
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Steps Out
The first steps out–
It’s not slow motion.
It’s now or never.
Some rungs get climbed
On the evolutionary ladder.
Sometimes you take a step sideways
And it’s curtains…
There’s a story about the first fish.
And there’s a story about some really evil lobsters.
The first ones out of the primal soup,
And there was a discussion about who was food
And who was going to eat whom.
And as with all things of this nature
There was a lot of disagreement…
When we check back later
There are a few lizards now
Who are really, really hungry.
There are small ones and big ones,
And some of them have very sharp teeth.
Of course this was the beginning of language.
Sometimes the truth
Is just very painful to hear…
The first steps out--
It’s not slow motion.
It’s now or never.
Some rungs get climbed
On the evolutionary ladder.
Sometimes you take a step sideways
And it’s curtains…folks…curtains
Ice age
blank page
gilded cage
all the rage
how to gauge
the wage the wage of sin
is where we’ve been
earth wind
rain and fire
funeral pyre
raise my ire
hot wire high flyer gun for hire liar liar liar…
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Stick Horse
I put you between my legs, ride you
over the rough-mowed land by the tool
and pass through Texas. I explore.
I expect you to last forever.
Plastic head and painted eyes, long body, strong
as the handle on a rake. Now
my sister calls from the garden.
Come look! Horses
Have sprung from the cucumbers.
They graze beside her planted knees, dirty
knees from digging.
It is time to attack, the tip
of your stick horse hoof
ticks madly along on the sidewalk.
Amigo, amigo, you chant. These cucumber
horses cannot last, stupid things!
Four short twigs for legs
under each pickle’s belly, a stick
juts out the top and holds on
the small green head. Pickle-brained
like my sister, I say. Only she
would build something already dead.
We gallop up. My little whickering spike,
you whip through her pickle-horse herd
and head back toward Texas. She’s crying,
Calling you names and I say over my shoulder,
it serves you right when you get in our way.
O my stick horse. You will last, you will last!
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