HEY GUYS! I wrote something! So exciting. Once a year, I'm in VT and have almost 3 whole days to write, and so I do.
Last year I wrote this poem. And hated it. So I left it alone, didn't look at it, and this year I thought, oh yeah, that poem. Didn't look at it again, but rewrote it.
So, this is it. Fire away.
My First Friend in Brookline
Dapple-barked giant on a quiet side-street,
all greens and browns, cool to the touch,
smooth, but alive as my own frantic heart.
She doesn’t cry out to me, just whispers—
the shhhhhhhh of wind above rooftops in her brittle leaves.
Before the bus stop, before the sidewalks,
before brownstones, before gas lights. Before
they built the synagogue or (maybe) even filled in the swamp—
you might say she’s been here a long time, but
I know she, like me, comes from somewhere far away.
Her gnarled root-knees bully back the sidewalk,
buckling pavement with their slow strength.
I stand on her lap, when I think no one is watching,
and lean against her, my face, my damp cheek staining--
Her leaves whisper shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, like a mother in the dark.
I imagine her sap pulling me up from broad trunk
to huge limbs, to branches still touched by sunset, out
to tiny twigs too high to see, to leaves that drink in the city,
turning what’s foul back to sweet.
Maybe I can learn the trick.
I bring her my panic, trembling with car horns, dust,
dog shit, worries of money and work and the wary stares
of toddlers when I wander alone by the park.
Plastered in advertising, tangled in trash, drug-addict hands
grasping at my ankles, I drag myself to her side. I look up, begging.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, she says. (What else, after all, can a sycamore say?)
And what more could I hope to learn than calm, patience, transformation?
When the rain falls on her whorled bark the browns deepen, the greens pop.
Damn, this is good. Starting with "dapple-barked". That really captures the shadowy, mottled essence of the sycamores. Also, the last line connects back so well. At first I was disappointed with the last line, but each time I looked back at it, I liked it more.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite stanza is the third one, chock-full of action.
One thought in terms of wording is "frantic heart" in the first stanza- I like how it gives a clue as to the fourth stanza, but it seems so jarring, I guess because I can't believe that the Sycamore is alive in any sort of frantic way.
I decided to research Sycamores and found they are indeed native trees to this area and apparently can live in swamps- so yes, maybe from before the fill! http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/platanus/occidentalis.htm. I wonder if the element of shedding and the lack of elasticity described below could be worked into the poem- but perhaps it's not so related: "An American sycamore tree can often be easily distinguished from other trees by its mottled exfoliating bark, which flakes off in great irregular masses, leaving the surface mottled, and greenish-white, gray and brown. The bark of all trees has to yield to a growing trunk by stretching, splitting, or infilling; the Sycamore shows the process more openly than many other trees. The explanation is found in the rigid texture of the bark tissue, which lacks the elasticity of the bark of some other trees, so it is incapable of stretching to accommodate the growth of the wood underneath and the tree sloughs it off"
Hey, I really like the overall idea of this poem! I think you're really successful in making the tree seem steady and calm and comforting. The one line describing the tree that I can't quite connect with is "turning what’s foul back to sweet" -- maybe this is just a little vague, or maybe it's because the rest of the poem is less about foul/sweet than about panic/calm (which seem like two different dichotomies to me). I also agree with Cara about the mention of the "frantic heart" in the first stanza -- can you show us that the tree is alive in a way that doesn't suggest that it is frantic?
ReplyDeleteAnother line I'm having trouble understanding is "plastered in advertising, tangled in trash" -- I"m not sure what this is referring to. I can imagine the city leaving you frazzled and anxious, but not plastered in advertising. Can you explain further, or choose a different way of saying this?
These minor details aside, though, the poem speaks to me. I think there's a great potential in the natural world for calm and healing.