Landscape with Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens emerges from behind my house—
A new shrub in the grey, half dead forest
“Was that always there?” asks my wife
“No,” I say, “something’s awry”
“Rum ti tum, ti tum tum tum” says the bush
**
Stop kidding around
We’re too old fashioned for that
We’re poets
In the age of inspiration meets grief
The new pornography
Stop kidding around
**
The leaves whisper
Wallace Stevens at the organ
Cathedral waggles
**
Mithridates he died old
**
Unplanned and even the exquisite flowers
But not the Wallace Stevens bush
**
I went to the lutier’s house
Where Segovia shopped—
Where a thin light
Lit the instruments
And hinted of music to come
**
Renga renga renga
Ghost of Basho
Backing up
**
I like the Swedish word for funeral
As it means to be be-grieved
“Funeral” is a word of uncertain origin
**
Meanwhile
I’m happy to sell you a spray
From the Stevens shrub
A hydrangea that talks endlessly
Of its unseen flowers
Planet of the Blind 