August
By Peter Cole
Homage to Morton Feldman
“Before the oracle, with the flowers”
—1 Kings 7:49
1
Here in the gloaming,
a wormwood haze —
the “m” on its head,
a “w,” amazed
at what the
drink itself does:
Vermouth,
god bless you — th.
2
What really matters now is begonia,
he thought, distracted while reading —
their amber anther and bone-white petals
missing from a jade pot
by the door — not a theory of metaphor.
3
In this corner, sweet alyssum.
And beside it fragrant jessamine.
Almost rhyming scents in the air —
a syntax weaving their there, there.
4
Erodium holds
an eye in the pink
looping the white of
its tendering cup.
5
The blue moon opens all
too quickly and floats
its head-
y fragrance over
the path
before us:
And so we slit
its throat, like a florist.
6
These hearts-on-strings
of the tenderest green
things that rise
from dirt,
then fall
toward the floor,
hang
in
the air
like —
hearts-
on-strings of the tenderest
green things —
they rise from dirt
then fall toward
the floor,
hanging in
the air like —
these
hearts-on-strings of the
tenderest green things,
rising
from dirt then falling
toward the floor,
hanging
in the air like
7
Moss-rose, purslane, portulaca
petals feeling
for the sun’s
light or is it
only warmth
or both
(they need
to open)
an amethyst
almost
see-through
shift
8
Bou-
gainvillea
lifts the sinking
spirit back
up and nearly
into a buoyancy —
its papery
pink bracts
proving with
their tease
of a rustle and glow
through the window —
there is a breeze.
9
Epistle-like chicory
blue beyond
the bars of these
beds suspended
in air,
(what doesn’t dangle?)
elsewhere, gives
way to plugged in,
pez-
purply thyme,
against a golden
(halo’s) thistle.
10
What’s a wandering
Jew to you
two, who often do
wonder about
that moving about?
Its purple stalk
torn-off and stuck
elsewhere in
the ground takes root
and soon shoots
forth a bluish
star with powder
on its pistil.
Such is the power
of that Jew,
wherever it goes
(unlike the rose),
to make itself new.
Source: Poetry (May 2017)