Nathaniel Bellows, “Horticultural”

I did not saw the fallen tree—not all
of it had fallen—because somehow each spring,
the rotted half still mysteriously bloomed.

In the orchard we hung iron fruit, syrup-coated
decoys to fool devouring convoys of insects.
The harvest suffered but survived the early frost,
and we grew sick of the sweetness of peaches.

We ate from the garden till it was spent, then
threw its left-behinds at each other—failures
still in their beds, scabbed over with saltmarsh hay.

Although the holly never went out of leaf,
we only clipped the branches, the berries
for the cold season when Joy took root in the house
and crept from room to room like a scarlet vine.

From Why Speak? Bellows will read tonight at Morningside Bookshop; he was also the first poet to read on the NY Times website back in 2002.

(And, yes, I had so much fun running poems for National Poetry Month I’m going to keep at it for a while. Enjoy!)

3 May 2007 | poetry |

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