Sylvia’s Trees
Yes, the elm. Yes, the yew
and its beetled black moon,
its bare-bone indifference.
But also, a brief paradise-time,
an Eden hour
at Court Green, her children
Frieda, Nicholas, fruiting
like mushrooms in rich soil,
her husband not yet restless
as a fox’s shadow.
Can you picture Sylvia
happy, Sylvia in her study
while six laburnum trees
scythe sunlight,
rain down gold
her fingers
flying fast over her mint-green
Hermes 3000,
shaping poem after poem.
Yes,
every part of the golden
chain tree is poisonous,
harboring cytisine,
but in this narrow now,
little window,
each yellow pea-mouth
talks back
to the bleak moon
with a blonde tongue,
her lemon-shout.
DAYNA PATTERSON is the author of O Lady, Speak Again (Signature Books, 2023) and If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020). Read more.