THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF MAY

Grow maples in me this grow-maple day;

I lie in the long chair and wait your coming.

Spin from branches heavy with fruit of leaves

My sudden seeds, my one-wings, turning, turning!

Leap in the wind that understands the life:

Land on on my leg and do not slide;

Catch in the ready furrows of my hair—I say

I have no pride.

For in me all the broad and murmuring branches

Wait but to hear it spoken.

The porch, the chair, the gutter will not take you.

But I am open.

Heads of life, stretched to the shape of flight

Plunge to my upturned palm, and with good reason:

My earth, my rain, my sun, my shade will grow you.

Let your season bring me into season.

THE CHANCE IMMORTALS

Consider the little immortal animals.

I am not here referring to the wide-gazing gods

Of Egypt, or Hicks’ pompous lions

So astonished at finding themselves lying down with lambs

But think of that special tribe

Carrying no generals on their backs.

Freighted with no allegory

They were merely whispered onto laps,

Coaxed to sit near chairs.

Often they fell asleep

Or would like to sleep, if only Dona Margarita of Austria’s

Dwarf would stop poking.

Sometimes as butt of joke, they wear forever

A pained embarrassment---and wouldn’t you

If Lord George Graham’s wig were on your head?

Besides the nameless puppies,

Nibblers at picnics,

Cavorters with kings’ children,

Sedate cats who stare directly at one

Knowing (who can doubt?) thus they will stare

Always from museum walls and never answer us:

Besides these there are the rare, the lucky, the named.

(After all, is it quite enough to be Prince Carlos’ bird dog,

Even El Greco’s cat?

For squirrels, there are higher designations

Than Henry Pelham’s Pet with Coral Chain.

When one of these is found, it casts a radiance

Across the centuries of quiet anonymity:

“I am Argus Peale, allow me to introduce the family I guar

With so many babies, it is no easy job,

Though there were only two when our portrait was painted;

But you can see I have a nobly fashioned head

And am loyal and dedicated, despite the confusion of

                                                        the household.”

THREE SHIPS

There was a woman by the sea

(With a heigh, with a ho),

Lived in a tower with windows three

(With a heigh-ho),

She hung a lantern in each light

(With a heigh, with a ho)

To guide the good ships home at night

(With a heigh-ho).

I sent three ships across the wave

(With a heigh, with a ho),

But stolen treasures they did crave

(With a heigh-ho).

We'll have each treasure-laden barque

(With a heigh, with a ho),

Sang wind and weather in the dark

(With a heigh-ho).

Her lanterns long had run their fuel

(With a heigh, with a ho):

No light to guide them through the duel

(With a heigh-ho),

And down they went, and paid the fee

(With a heigh, with a ho)----

And lost the treasure meant for me

(With a heigh, heigh-ho).

A CAT GEOGRAPHY

Forests of fur

With mountain skills

Know how to lie

On her small hills

That hold all scents

Undisciplined:

Earth, ocean, rain,

River and wind.

Warming glacier

Of belly thaws,

Extending down

Snow legs and paws:

Buffed beaches rim

Those lakes of eyes

Where fish of light

Fin green surprise:

Her stretching map

A continent

Unto whose shores

Our fleet is sent,

Our ships of hands

To steal the pleasure

Of her rich head,

Her haunches’ treasure.