While Sarah sits working her poem
into the metaphoric depths of elm trees,
she sheds words, more like a flurry
of buckeye leaves into the fire of summer.
Aestivating, pooling precious water
during the annual drought, the buckeye is tough,
knows when to conserve, how to pull back—
Innate structure cannot be taught.
I warn my students the verb “to be”
engulfs poems like a black hole.
A builder of hidden realms, the beetle
devours the inner thoughts of the elm.
Because only the thin cambium layer is alive,
& has no defences against the small engineer
boring into the dead heartwood,
the hefty elm, riddled with rot, will fall
during a storm several years hence.
Sarah's name sounds like wind
in the elm leaves of summer.
I want to tell her of Daphne's escape
from the hunter,
that I witnessed her mother's grief
for the baby sister who died in the fire,
& the streets of Russia are lined with trees.
Though she strives to be the towering elm,
sap coursing through her capillaries,
she is also the architectural beetle,
excavating into the very center of self.
No drought or dryrot will weaken her
because she grows from the inside out,
shedding the unnecessary foliage,
gaining strength with each new line.
2/19/92
1996 Voices Israel
published in CPITS anthology NAME?
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