Tuesday, August 11, 2009

my wilted lettuce, having read mary oliver's 'Walking to Oak-Head Pond...'


















i.
what could i possibly hope to turn up
that would count
after trudging around in my daily swamp
to compare to mary's words
already dancing about like freckles on a forest lily?

ii.
must i gaze upon her plummy stanzas
while i sit with my morning raisin?

hell.

she has sucked out all of the goody

nothing hangs in the air waiting to come to me

my spirit is off mooning over her substance,
and my will is lost to the soft pleasure of her phrases.

the languid hours of silence before me
reach out to hold my wilted lettuce on a twig with two fingers

iii.
so here sit my little ciphers
with all the crispness of cobwebs,
waiting for an unwary gnat of praise

while her words already recline
in the splendor of gods,
lolling about on the well-lauded page

iv.
'think i'll swat flies
and then take a nap

2 comments:

Wormwood's Doxy said...

Ah...you get "Writers' Almanac" too, I see. ;-)

There's really no problem, Duck. You write the beautiful poems inside of you, and she writes the beautiful poems inside of her. She was just lucky enough to get a publisher!

You keep writing, or I'll have to come down there and have a chat with you. And my children can tell you that you do NOT want me to do that... ;-)

Cheers,
Doxy

t.l.h.heller said...

doxy my wonderful friend your generosity is a lovely balm, and i am not usually so peevish but it just hit me that she was singing so beautifully all of the notes i love so well...so i just sighed and sighed...

...and if i thought i could provoke you into coming down here i would write a HUNDRED peevish poems...!! and if i really worked at it maybe you would have to bring the whole fam damily as reinforcements!
:P quackquack!!