this is the politics of swelling leaf in bud
unfolding urgent, hairy root dividing
and divining, seeking the damp earth’s corners. this is
the creed of furrowed bark, the sacred cambium
from which the treeflesh bubbles as water from a seep
in flood-time, bright fountains from beneath
the soil. an acorn hits the earth, throws out a splash
of wood and leaf three hundred years aloft, then falling.
this is the politics of air, a homily of light,
light fallen on the earth, on leaf in bud
and eaten, light transformed to sweetness,
these lives a cascade of sweetness eaten.
a spectral doctrine, color made where none
was found before, light fallen on the wing
of Steller’s jay filing her beak on furrowed twig,
light split asunder, blue from white distilled,
and blue refracted from the backs of dragonflies
perched sidelong on the swaying reed.
dogma enough, a groaning board
of policy, polls on the warblers’ backs,
a macrocosmic credo, and the quarreling of bantam apes
mere noise against the hallelujah Hyla choir.
no need for heaven stripped of soil, no need
for pallid partial polity by dollar. all that lives
exults, and silent watchers offer harmony.
Wow. Each of these last three posts has made me sigh contentedly and then go back and read them again. Thanks.
you’re a poet, man. I really like this.
“hallelujah Hyla choir”
is just really fun to say out loud.
[biopedantically, regilla fits better in Pseudacris...]
Are we to read this as you saying you aren’t writing about politics anymore? Because this is not the time to retreat into nature poetry.
Because this is not the time to retreat into nature poetry
This time, this now, is what it is (transcendent), no matter what anyone does or doesn’t do.
And who or what has defined nature poetry as a retreat?
I don’t know about transcendence. I do know poetry is anything but retreat, this poem in particular.
I am unendingly amazed by people’s willingness to tell others what to write & how to write it, what to feel & how to feel it, what to believe & how to believe it, what they’re doing wrong & and how to better do it someone else’s way. Noise.
It doesn’t get more radical than what feeds us well enough to keep going.
Are we to read this as you saying you aren’t writing about politics anymore?
I think he just did. And yeah, what virgotex and Theriomorph said. There’s a sentence I’ve never written before.
You may want to copy and paste that somewhere for later and frequent use, Rob.