All around the house huge elms and oaks Billow up like green thunderheads In heat that brings cicadas to a boil. You might think no one's died for a while. The air is still Until the tousled willow stirs From a deeply sexual nap, And a slight wind Flips through a paperback Left open near the open window. From the way it skims I'd say This breeze has no interest in the text. It's looking for some tiny flowers And four-leaf clovers it would like to have back. So I take down a notebook I know to be full Of such flowers and clovers My mother gathered during her life Of trying to make the ephemeral last, And open it near the open window For the wind to leaf through And want what it takes. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FAREWELL TO CYNTHIA by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS EMERSON by AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT TWELVE SONNETS: 12. AFTER BATTLE by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) PRAIRIE VOICES by CHARLOTTE LOUISE BERTLESEN WISDOM UNAPPLIED by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. BY THE MERSEY by EDWARD CARPENTER |