>> I have to tell you what the next poem was written
for because I have to get in these two words.
It was written about a Sierra Club poster.
If any of you know my husband at all --
-- I have a beautiful Sierra Club poster in my room and from time
to time I have my students write on pictures when they just can't get ideas for poems.
So one time I tried it with that poster that's in my room.
Some of you may be familiar with it.
So it's just a tree set against ferns.
Autumn Tree.
So like a line, a black rope twining toward light beside ferns.
Coined leaves meshing into wool, perching on wire branches like fine chartreuse gold.
Aristocrat, I want to be an earring, piercing your lawn ear, the only gold that doesn't yield.
All that cold, surely by spring when the circle of ice falls
and melts, the thin round words will start.