Donald Revell

Bartram's Travels

Having dined at the ferry, I crossed the river into Georgia . . .
--William Bartram

Thus, sweet yellow
Jessamine,
A decent life
In the woods and
The white dust--
Such little hair,
So light a crown--
Saint Joan will be there
When the fire has died
And the river crossing
Is all but behind us.
We shall be young trees again
Driven by dying into late
Summer blossom,
Whiteness coolly clustered
On the scorched branches
That show no signs of burn.

The Wisdoms

"It was now late; Goethe gave me his dear hand, and I departed."
--Johann Peter Eckermann

What happened? I was one
Gladly suffered the believing I am I.
A cut tree weeps a stream of ants from its wounds.
Not two feet away, sage and verbena thrive
In a cascade of blue differences
Over the lizards and dirt.
La di da. To matter to me,
Time was, a man or woman had to love me.
That was America.
That was a chief concern.
What happened is my eyes have no color.
I love the way a flower steps away
From a dead tree.
Broken glass is alive too,
In the colors. In them, I was a republic.

Sibylline

My trees are gone yellow to the East.

That's wrong.
That's the afterlife,
Or Argicida at least.

And late at night in the deep chair
When the movie is black & white,
It finds one Deborah Kerr
In tears on the beach in furs,
Connecticut, not Elysium,
And the moon rising from an ocean made of paper.

Why this wild longing
For the world of light?
It's wrong.
It's killing my trees.

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Donald Revell is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Arcady (Wesleyan, 2002), winner of the PEN Center USA Award, and My Mojave (Alice James, 2003), winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His most recent book is Pennyweight Windows: New and Selected Poems (Alice James, 2005). contents | next