[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BallardCountry.mp3″]
a cento
In the clear light that confuses everything,
a tree grows as one might have grown
in the Garden of Eden.
It started its wander like any tree in the world would:
small, significant, having a purpose, a desire
to bud leaves. The neighbors call it an elm—
a Siberian elm because some could see into Russia.
Perhaps in strain or collusion,
but this is not the point.
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary:
the forest of buoyancy that suffered Alexander
who from his true course turned
the hands of this telling to a tree-pull on a hill
overlooking the icy river, and now the greenhouse is dark,
gone, and here must I remain as the storm-struck oak
leaned closer to the house—I say this to be beautiful.
It is not the chambers of the heart
which hold the affairs, or the tree, but all we know of history.
It is said they planted trees by the graves.
In some narratives, the young girl throws poisoned peas out the window.
In some narratives, there is no such window.
