[Alex Pepple]

Foxgloves


Mozart does it so neatly,
answering every question posed.
I swear his concerto billowing out the porch
attracts bird song.
                                                  Their song
is not so neatly balanced as the master’s,
their melodies can end in queries
or falter in mid-arc without resolution
while no matter how far Mozart’s questing strays
it always folds back to its origin
not just by counterpoint but re-affirmation
as if the world made sense.

Beyond the porch the shaggy foxgloves
droop their furiously maculate lilac bells,
broad leaves uneven, some prematurely yellowed
and these are nothing like Mozart,
more ragged life, shedding and beautiful,
its messy menstrual necessities even
in crescendo trumpeting decay.

(In fact when earlier I tried to straighten
the foxgloves’ winding stalks

they would have none of it.
See how they curl like snakes?)

.

.

___________ The plain vanilla repeat below is for those with clunky old browsers ______

Foxgloves


Mozart does it so neatly,
answering every question posed.
I swear his concerto billowing out the porch
attracts bird song.
                                                  Their song
is not so neatly balanced as the master’s,
their melodies can end in queries
or falter in mid-arc without resolution
while no matter how far Mozart’s questing strays
it always folds back to its origin
not just by counterpoint but re-affirmation
as if the world made sense.

Beyond the porch the shaggy foxgloves
droop their furiously maculate lilac bells,
broad leaves uneven, some prematurely yellowed
and these are nothing like Mozart,
more ragged life, shedding and beautiful,
its messy menstrual necessities even
in crescendo trumpeting decay.

(In fact when earlier I tried to straighten
the foxgloves’ winding stalks

they would have none of it.
See how they curl like snakes?)