The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: plants

  • On the Whole of Things

    having cut it out [it, all its]
    pleasure now without article
    embellishment whole
    some questions

    consider blue hydrangea
    yesterday transplanted
    from pot to ground
    root, stem, leaf, bud

    in which will we find
    whole plantness
    cup without coffee
    gives us to mark time

    a day without hours
    hours without minutes
    minutes without seconds
    where will we find time

    for whole things
    words opening
    seeds, bulbs
    into whole language

    grown in pots
    root-bound can
    but describe
    like mathematics
    can not be


  • A Fourth of a Poem

    Grand Ave Beach

    All around us,
    the plants whisper
    in dry brittle voices,
    “water us, water us.”

    Sotto voce,
    there is no water,
    and what falls is not wet
    or gentle,

    but drops of chthonic fireworks,
    urban, rural, coastal infernos.
    The plants dig and pray to Hades,
    and cooler there

    than here in this air.