Smoke

Another week has begun

its inevitable climb to the future.

The lace of sycamore twigs

beyond the bent pruned rose canes.

I like to look at the smoke that swirls

from the neighbor’s chimney, up

into the fog, disappearing

and returning again. Thinking how

I would shyly give my grandmother

little packets of poems, which she

looked at about the way she looked at

the gift mouse in the cat’s jaws.

The cat wasn’t her cat, but the cat

chose my little grandmother: steely-

eyed and corseted, whom the cat knew

was the neediest person in the house.

Obsession with the Dogwood

1.

It is officially spring. The dogwood

blooming lacy and spindly

in the shade of the plane tree.

Under the plane tree, a flock

of parrot tulips gold-orange

with crenellated petals like wings.

And bright yellow tulips

with black centers like eyelashes.

A cherry tree across the street.

Why do I think of the past?

I don’t miss anyone, not badly.

And it was a different place

with elms and blue-eyed forget-

me-nots under an ancient deodar tree.

The generation before me

has faded away, as this season

of flowers will. You must create

the world from nothing yourself.

2.

Every morning I think marriage

an amazing state to be in.

The roses laid out in the window

like a bouquet; the sprays

of white dogwood, pink geraniums

flowing down from a pot, entwined

with the roses. And we are there

with them, silently, two thirds

of our lives together, meshed.

Separation would tear out

the hearts of those flowers. We

are in our winter now, but here

at the end of winter, the roses,

the dogwood, the geraniums

begin to bloom.