Day 394 September 26 2015 Derecho Rain

Derecho Rain

This is the year the neighbor's tree came down;
the wind and rain was like derecho
a sinister derecho
like I never seen before...
and then a crash!
like Kapellmeister Bach slamming fast down
upon his primeval Himmelsburg
frightening his twelve obbligato woodwinds!
 
So I called my neighbor 
and he did not know me,
and asked if I wished to clean it up
and I said I did not have a chain saw anywheres
near that big, I mean, by Santa Muerte
and Lord Death...
I have not the mortal mean Scythe
to cut, to chop!
To thin out the surplus population!

We've closed up for the winter
and the fence rails where it fell
and still broke and splintered,
but I imagine I can still see the full foliage
of its first fall! when the leaves
filled our back yard full fifty
feet from its trunk!

And even now my vision is obscured by
that fallen crown of leaves,
just as I still see the long gone rock garden
and the wisteria alley with its swings,
and outhouses pushed over on Halloween!
I see through cataracts of the past.

--

Fast Day 289 December 15 2012 {The Gardener Says}

 Le Vieux Jardinier    par Guillaume Van Strydonck

The Gardener Says

The Gardener says:
The northern wind comes
and interrupts the trees
closely spaced within our garden,
ties and unties the laces
of the branches interweave -
like combing the snarls
from a child's hair -
and tosses the mixed fruits:
cherries and peaches,
from tree to tree
faster than the presto eye
can follow.

The west wind is the metronome,
the east wind brings the storm,
the south wind is an amulet called "azure"
that keeps us safe from harm.

--

Fast Day 256 April 29 2012 {In The Time Of Nectar Famine}

In the time of nectar famine,
the winds are filled with pollen:
aromatic like spice from the Islands
of Cockaigne and Creole spice cake;
a bawdy savory of genital
peppercorns of trees:
crabapple and dogwood.

In the time of spring blood heat,
the rains come after midnight;   
shaking down half the cherry blossom corymbs,
leaving half pennant on the trees:
accounting of patchwork flowering cloves!
pink lanterns in suspense
between heaven and earth!



--
notes


a happiness to balance the previous poem.
spring pollen from crabapples can be very heady.
The scene is a park where crabapples have bloomed, the air is filled with their peppery (to me, at least) scent, and rains have knocked so many blooms down that everything: sidewalk, lawn, trees, and sky are perfectly pink, and one is indistinguishable from the other. (real story.)... so it is a hard "accounting" of the spicy tree blooms.

Cockaigne - mythical land of plenty or make-believe. I am thinking of it as a French usage:
 (Wikipedia)
George Ellis printed a 13th century French poem called "The Land of Cockaigne" where

the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing.

and that matches up with "creole" which gives the idea of a mixture or melang.

pennant - "to leave half pennant" means "to leave half (of them) flying like pennants on the tree branches."