Throwback Thursdays! We’re bringing back some of our favorite pieces from the last 30 years of Scribendi.
Three-In-One to a Chinese Elm
Lara Hill-University of New Mexico-1989
This poem is to be read three ways: down the left, down the right, and across as a whole.
They say you’re a weed since you thrive
tenacious as time lusty in lean life zones
Why, you’ll plumb take over
they say
unless we make regular ritual
havoc to hack you back
you’re a stubborn survivor
Once this infant spring,
I clipped new shoots, already too tough of root to yank,
with tiny red-rimmed baby leaves without want or will,
filling out whole
But it’s Maytime now
I watch you, almost
shamelessly heartgay and unabashed
you’re too dazzling to hate
in raging bloom
You who show me how
Your twigs spiral out from winter thin
with flat round growing
Saucers, lime green I can see the light right through
with slim round seeds
inside
By July, your ripe disks dry on out
to rice paper white,
scatter on wide summer’s wind free floating white,
to claim fresh grip on more ground throughout our common space