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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
JUSTICE, by JAMES GALVIN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: All around the house huge elms and oaks
Subject(s): Cicadas; Elm Trees; Justice; Oak Trees
First Line: All around the house huge elms and oaks
Subject(s): Cicadas; Elm Trees; Justice; Oak Trees
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
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ELIOT'S OAK; SONNET by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
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