LYNN ASCRIZZI

Red Tree

(for Mark Tobey)

There’s almost too much red
for such a slender tree.

In dying, what is each leaf saying?

We who try to read the correspondences
written in blazing trees and falling leaves —

how do we comprehend
the tongues of fire
those torn apostles speak,
or the branch that once held gently,
that pierces now.

And who knows how they’re spelled —
the unresisting words they cry,
or how that singular, ruby light
envelopes all.

Better than new,
now that the tree has yielded
and the leaves are through.

For in that light, what is success?
We’re best when we lose ourselves.

Night Migration

Late November.
I wake to the cries
of geese flying south
above black woods
and leafless gardens.

I cannot see them passing
outside my window,
but I hear their ordeal
in the strenuous rush of wings
that knife-edge freezing air
and in the urgent calls that echo
between the young and unversed
and those that have learned
how to make the dark crossing
together without a map,

to trust in the moon and stars,
in magnetism, the winds,
in their pounding hearts,
in their courage to stay
the course, to get through.

Memorial Day

On a back road
where a farmhouse looms
through early morning fog,
I drive past a man flanked
by lilacs and apple trees,
putting in a garden.

As retreating clouds lift
over fences and blood-red osiers,
he counts seeds in the palm
of his hand, in the rare
pearl of an unstained hour.

In a blurred instant, I share his holiday
and name him friend, though I scarcely
know him and barely recognize
the small piece of myself transfixed
in the rearview mirror, as I try
to recapture a vision that tumbles back
into itself on the swiftly narrowing road.

So, I wave to the man wearing
work clothes and hat — to the gardener —
who has taken this day to remember
himself and to rebuild his earth,
who gathers fallen branches
to mark his planting lines,
tamps row after planted row
with the back of a hoe,
who knows by heart
what each cradled spark
yearns to become.

Hard Ground

To all things that grow
in hard ground,
like crabgrass that thrives
between rocks
and reinforced concrete,
erupts from secret nodes,
pushes up through
cracks in sidewalks,
seizes particles of light and air,
springs sheath and blade
to burst open on hot tar —
green stars in a dustbin world,

To all that is small
and unkindly regarded,
snubbed and trampled,
spit upon and bruised
but leaps back,
filled with the irresistible,
untiring life impulse,
bringing its color, gift and glory
to every bleak and trafficked place,

To all things looked upon as weeds
that blossom anyway,
like wild sunflowers
beaming in smoking landfills,
or cornflowers blowing
ragged blue notes
near guard rails and tenements.

To the unbidden tenacity
that pushes back,
that seeds tiny plots of grace
by stop signs and detours,
waving us to move on,
reminding us of the rebellious,
gritty stuff inside the heart
that prevails in every
afflicted, oppressive place,

To the mystery of generation
that aspires, like velvet-leafed mullein,
to light its flower candles
amid the ruin of this world,

To the sacred will
that wants to, and shall
reassert itself —

We welcome your return
to our dazed and bulldozed earth.

Lynn Ascrizzi