Three Hearts
A chicken with three hearts, that is a vanished
breed, a day of glory in the corn,
romance against a fence. It was the sunset
just above New Egypt that made me wince,
it was the hay blown up from Lakewood. God
of chance, how much I loved you in those days,
how free I felt and what a joy it was
sitting there with my book, my two knees braced
against the dashboard. How empty it was then,
and how my mind went back. How many hearts
did the chickadee have? How much whistling and singing
was in those fields? How far did I have to go
to disappear in those grasses, to pick those trillium?
My Death for Now
I have settled down to watch the branches
growing vertically from two dead limbs.
It's what I do all day. I raise my left arm
and hunch my shoulder over. My leg is asleep,
which is my death for now, although sometimes
I raise both arms and let the fingers turn on
the vertical branches; then my hands are dead,
not just my leg. It is the middle of January
and there is a sheet of ice and there are berries
and leftover leaves and even a few old weed stalks.
I wave my fingers—there is little wind—
I arch my neck—there is a twisted trunk
against a wire fence. It is a window
I sit in. I am marking a day for wisdom.
I give that to myself. I give myself
a day for mercy. I turn my hand arond;
it is an amaryllis. The wrist is bent,
the fingers are spread. I give myself a basket;
I brought it from Pennsylvania; I put the flower
inside the basket. The wire is forgeous. The handle
was rubbed by German farmers. It was filled
by yellow peaches. There is a certain dryness
that makes them small and juicy. Too much rain
will make them mealy, or stringy. I touch my lips
to the little leaves; it is the flower of fruits,
delicate, aromatic, yet they are heavy,
they weigh the basket down. I stretch my palms;
I look at them in awe. I straighten my fingers.
I bend for water. I drink the snow. I lie
on my stomach drinking snow. Two of the peaches
are bruised. I turn them around. I try to keep them
free of each other. I do it by concentration.
I blink one eye; and frown. That is the dream,
just sitting and thinking—frowning; that is the joke,
the juices running down. I bend like a bee,
I lean to the left, one hand is at my neck,
the other is on my cheek. I wipe my chin.
I may as well count the leaves—buried in the snow;
I might as well listen to the diesels or bring the
squirrels back and watch them dig. That was September,
the end of summer, my window was open, a dwarf
was singing in my bedroom, there were books
spread all over the porch, with pencils inside,
there were mosquitoes still, my birch was turning,
the noise was insane, birds were screaming, walnuts
were dropping on the roof. I might as well die
from the past; I might as well die from longing.
(c) 1992 by Gerald Stern. All rights reserved.
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