Wildflowers, and: November Trees, and: Endgame in August

Wildflowers

I.

Hawkweed and chicory along the roadsides, Gall-of-the-earth beneath the trees,

The path through the woods walled with sun- Flowers—yellow rays floating on the green,

Upright ply of leaves, eight- to ten-feet tall— The powdery clouds of joe-pye among them,

And ironweed now coming into blossom, Its deep-inked purples jolting the light.

II.

A bank of buttercups transfixed us once as boys. Then we were preempted—cars, clothing,

The fleshed heat of the neighborhood streets Marking our bolt through adolescence.

By then I’d been hauled to so many viewings Flowers for me were only those overblown,

About-to-perish wreaths, scents as cloying As my aunts’ perfumed handkerchiefs.

III.

It was cattails that saved me, and pampas grass, The milled combs of the teasel.

Discovering their brushed-ink calligraphies, It was weeds that brought me back.

I drew them once myself on rice paper. Blots and lines. We’d been taught

Drawing was marks on paper, nothing more. And yet ink was leafing before me.

IV.

The woman I lived with came home one day With the billowy armful she’d clipped,

Then set fanning in the corner of the room— Zen stalks, Zen plumes—the root word wild

Connecting for me wilderness with flower. A whole life spent missing the obvious,

And here it is again today staring me in the face: Foxglove, oxeye daisy, fall or garden phlox.

November Trees

I.

Now in November, the temperature about To drop through the upper registers of frost, I bring in the weeping fig that stood on my porch All summer and set it back before the glass doors To the deck, marking a kind of equinox, Through the rooms from north to south.

A form of counterpoint, the tree in the house, Then branching out of doors where the winds Pass through it and this year’s warblers Wove their nest. Rooted, it’s easily disturbed By even such routine shifts, though glad For the light which is resident, inside and out.

II.

All morning the thaw’s been making that shivery racket, clattering there on all sides where ice is shearing free, sheaths dropping from downspouts and gutters, panes from gables, the wires shedding their brittle sleeves. Cold yesterday and rain glazed every surface, cocooning the branches, the traceries of the weeds. By the time it stopped, I was already asleep, fast within those waters. By the time I woke, the world was encased with light, like a gallery of nimbused bronzes. Before my window the dogwood flashed in its scaffolding of sunstruck limbs— the stillness I’ve heard it shed all morning, that clattering of hard bright skins.

III.

Frost on the window like xylem on a slide. Stemmed leaves etched in crystal.

Endgame in August

Because ruin is what awaits us soon enough, I’ve thought to offset the inevitable,

Putting in a second crop of snap beans, A fourth of salad greens, hoeing up weeds,

And ripping out so much perimeter ivy Its ganglia will fire along my optic nerves

Tonight as I’m falling asleep. Poison ivy Veining among the grape and runners

Of wild strawberry, I’m playing it safe And gloved, remembering the summer

In Zionsville I was brought to this through love, The flash point of my wife’s allergies,

Keeping her free of that ravishment. I knelt before the raspberries and lilac tree,

The scrawled, naked stalks of the privet, Feeling my wrists prickle with sweat,

And yanking out the mangy vines Sought not to be touched by that caustic

Which touches off the skin. As I do now, Though what else here will ravish it?