Translations from the Flesh

Getting It Straight

18 Getting it straight What we have here is A tree with a serious lean. And no wonder— In this high wind, Even the sky’s not safe: The mare’s tails keep flicking the eagles away. Over here, the bleeding heart And baby’s breath; over there, the birch Like a scroll of old parchment On which some hand has Spelled out the black strokes of a poem. I remember the early dusk, The early fall, when all the leaves turned up Their lifelines in the breeze. It was a time for Crystal pears and cool wines from Austria. Those of us who still Write letters, leaf after leaf, have learned The erotics of absence, Mind and body Stripped down to bare words on a page. But that was back in The season of suffrage, when what counted was Talk of cuts and economy. These are the days of rogation, Before the big lift and the rising sap. Still, the birch can’t seem To get it straight, not like the catalpa tree With its green linga, Seed pods in a droop, Or the samaras of maple taking a dive. 19 And the bees are out, too, Not in the off-white hives of blossom On the buckeye, but in The backyard at every petal, A scrum hunched in their rugby brown and gold— The backyard, where Squirrels slide off the glass of the finch feeder, And all the yellow afternoon Sparrows roll in the dust, Too lazy to scratch a living from the front lawn. The whole planet’s Stricken by the ugly buzz of being born. I’m still waiting for Another annunciation, Some complicated air for virginal by Byrd. Meanwhile, the day Bends downward, and each tree, from the pine To the star magnolia, Foreshadows the dark, Lies longer than itself as the sun gives up. On a night like now, Anything even half alive, alow or aloft, Could use a drink. I toast The marshmallow moon And slip a little whiskey to the potted plant. ...