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...THE THREAD OF LIFE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI A SATIRICAL ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A LATE FAMOUS GENERAL by JONATHAN SWIFT ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 13. TO AUTHOR OF MEMOIRS OF HOUSE OF BRANDENBURGH by MARK AKENSIDE THE STORM by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE THE ACHARNIANS: IN PRAISE OF THE POET by ARISTOPHANES EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 27. THE POWER OF ELOQUENCE IN LOVE by PHILIP AYRES |