Jinglia Tinkettlia

from Edward Lear's Nonsense Botany

Love Letters

To Plant Taxonomy

I placed your syllables on my tongue

Acer palmatum, Pseudotsuga,

tasty as white truffle oil.

I thought you my calling,

pressed leaves between pages

of my taxonomy tome,

kept crumbling testatments

odor of rot in a shoe box

plant stained notecards

blue in a cramped hand

for twenty years.

I stroked leaves in the arboretum,

called to you in code.

You didn't acknowledge me

I embraced a tree and longed for you,

your gossip and Latin, how it felt

to enter your intricate hierarchies.

I never questioned your motives,

would have lit a votive to your

perfection if you had called me yours.

To the Head of the Charles

Railroad, BU, River Street, Western Ave.,

Weeks Footbridge, Larz Anderson, Eliot

I learned your turnings and timings, sought

your orange buoys and your green,

kept watch for the blue dome where

Weeks meets Cambridge shore.

My voice over the cox box speakers

enchoed inside bridge arches.

Last year I wasn't ready to meet your needs,

I am glad I waited. You were too grand,

too impressive. I mastered

some of your complications, recognized

my limitations in passing - others

passed me but you stayed,

your steady flow every call and stroke.

We swung together through The Big Turn,

my rudder and rowers sure.

You favored others more.

I know what it is to feel unworthy.

You took me on,

the moment to moment calls,

sun across your surface,

our time so sharply gone.

To the Dead

I'm a sap for you, clumsy

in my breath, sweat, my

bloody corporeal form.

Let me slip out of this skin

and show you who I am.