‘SEATED UNDER JUNEBERRY TREES’, ‘MARCH POEM, WITH BLEAK WEATHER’ & ‘NOTES FOR A POEM, TITLED: CROWS AND CADDISFLIES’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

SEATED UNDER JUNEBERRY TREES

Some little god has pufft his cheek,

Peleurion, and spilld one petal white

into your dark cup. Drink it, then,

and consider,—all the Poets fools,

the Priests too simple minded to conceive

the unruly chaos of the Truth:

that Men are ruled each by his Heart alone,

and no Lonely Power orchestrates the Birds;

So we beguile our minds by Goddesses

and Gods, from overwhelm of lively Earth—

for every berry has its very own,

and every petal has its little Ghost,

a chubby spirit, rolling in his joy,

pressing his cheek to yours and kissing you!

Murder him not with cruelty,

that gives his whole possession to your lips.

MARCH POEM, WITH BLEAK WEATHER

Let there be men at windows grieving,

sorrowing today;

What falls is rainier than snow

and grimmest shade of grey—

Let men at windows agonize;

let lovely women sigh;

And let me catch their utterings

as I come walking by—

My hands are wet, and stiff with ice,

but let me only see

The sorrowful at windowpanes

before they notice me;

Let her sighs fall on my right hand,

with heat of humid breath,—

And give his bloodwarmed grumblings here

to thaw my frigid left.

Let all who stare from windows weep,

I only love it more—

And dream to go that soggy way

where all have gone before.

NOTES FOR A POEM, TITLED: CROWS AND CADDISFLIES

Caddisfly larvae are the ones I saw all over the beach,

wearing shells reminiscent of a worm’s mind,

along the tideline wretchedly going—

and shaggy big crows shambling along it too,

taking the little shelters in their claws

& plucking the worms out easily.

The shells are too perilous for the collecting,

and too homely to take the trouble:

But now, upon the homeward trip,

Some girls take cherries in their lips

and pluck the stems, and chat, and smile;

and I watch them eat for many miles.

Robert Hunter is a poet from Southeast Michigan. His work may be found in AGNI, Granta, and the Wayne State University Press. He also runs a "cryptopublication" called Detroit Lit Mag.