Authors: Lorine Niedecker
Collecte Works (26 page)
Bonpland
“Revolutionary palingenesis”—
his plants rode the Orinoco sheltered
while he sat in the rain.
He chopped, climbed, dug the jungle
for his beloved lost girl,
returned with botany
alone.
Rebellion-plotting Bogota
moved him—
nine years in Paraguay's dictator's
prison
—to graft a phrase.
Happy New Year
“Glorious and abundant
The cherry trees are in flower
In all the world there is nothing
Finer than brotherhood.”
My friend, you were right.
Two thousand years
beyond you
I hand you this:
Trees' bloom with snow-
clean sorrow
better than bitter
winter
brotherhood
Resolved: beyond
flowering cherry trees
dissolved enmity
find summer
brother
Linnaeus in Lapland
Nothing worth noting
except an Andromeda
with quadrangular shoots—
the boots
of the people
wet inside: they must swim
to church thru the floods
or be taxed—the blossoms
from the bosoms
of the leaves
Fog-thick morning—
I see only
where I now walk. I carry
my clarity
with me.
Hear
where her snow-grave is
the
You
ah you
of mourning doves
Cricket-song—
What's in The Times—
your name!
Fame
here
on my doorstep
—an evening seedy
quiet thing.
It rings
a little.
Musical Toys
for a blind child
Do you see?—
sharp spires—
you could be hurt
by the church.
Better
this dog
tinkling
three nice
mice
blind.
I fear this war
will be long and painful
and who
pursue
it
Van Gogh could see
twenty-seven varieties
of black
in capitalism.
No matter where you are
you are alone
and in danger—well
to hell
with it.
How white the gulls
in grey weather
Soon April
the little
yellows
Springtime's wide
water-
yield
but the field
will return
White
among the green pads—
which
a dead fish
or a lily?
Dusk—
He's spearing from a boat—
How slippery is man
in spring
when the small fish
spawn
