Grove.

                                      (Walker Art Center)

Around an assemblage of iron and rust
(a sculpture) the gardeners have planted trees,
a perimeter of them. In drawings, they must
have dreamed for the sculpture long, secret days—
first, in the summer, when the sun soared high;
and then for winter, a baffling of snow
and cloud a canopy over it, a close roof of sky.
A room. Walls whispering dead leaves, low

tuneless music, for casting spells of an afternoon.
That’s if you’re the spell-casting type.
If you’re of a more pragmatic bent, and runes
are of little use, you might like to while
away an hour or a half a day, and lean
up against a trunk, with a pen to confide
plan to paper, as if you were the dream
or the dreamer, whispering live leaves, low

and sonorous, into a future of your own design.
That’s the power of the tree world, row
upon row of poplars, say, cambium wild,
split upon split, spring xylem and phloem
repeating their halo. A garden like this, I want.
The machine tree-softened, a place to sow
every breath, trace, sussuration, hint:
my hands full of whispering seed leaves low.

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