tree meditations and others 229
like the rest of the mountainside. Mere weather
has cleaned them out
higher, sycamore
and oak and bigleaf maple
and occasional pools
and trees blasted
along one fl ank by the heat
a squirrel crosses
a branch over the road,
his fur fi lls
with light,
spilling it off .
variation from a theme by marsden hartley
Hartley, summer was plainly for you,
remarker of joined clearnesses, plover noticer,
savorer of `infant clams' and campestris, among the opulence,
`the look of bright everlastingness'
But it is not for me, in summer
it seems there's nothing to do
but continue what's become obvious, greens
overlapping soberly, whitening sky,
stationary August.
An upper rocky fi eld, and the way
begins to open, a few bright
stubble stalks leaning among the clods, nearby,
and red light fl ickering in the distance, on the blue fl ats
where they're burning off the cattails in the sloughs,
And `shall the cold fl owing waters
that come from another place