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Collected Poetry

    (rd king dot net)
poetry and digital art

In California

  Beneath the Tree of Heaven 


At my visionary and foolish request
my wife took our daughters
and stood with them beneath the Tree of Heaven.
She held our youngest in her arms
while I coaxed them to smile, teasing
Hillary and taking color photographs
to send to their grandparents
who live in a small town on the coast—
not caring so much if they smiled
but trying to get all three
looking into the lens, hands
not covering the mouths, all eyes
open.  Rain was dripping from the leaflets
above them.  The weeds were still
standing after this first rain.  Droplets
had collected on them like dew
and also on the spider's web that hung
there between the two mulleins, now
almost backlit by the sun.  The clouds
had broken enough to allow the light
to streak in around us.  It was our first
look at the new autumn.  We were happy
to be with the rain again.  Some clouds
were still dragging against the crowns
of the ponderosa and most of the oaks
had yet to turn.  The rain had cleansed
the leaflets on the Tree-of-Heaven.
They were as bright and new-looking
as they had been in the spring; and so
was the silk tree except for the pods
which were now turning brown.  We inhaled
the ozone and that new smell of wet weeds,
but there was no wood smoke
rising from the chimneys as yet.

Then a wind came and shook the Tree of Heaven.
A shower of big droplets fell on the young
Hillary—and that started her running
through the august weeds and the reservoirs
she met through the spiders' webs
and the heavy august weeds.  She was trying
from her face the water to rub; she was
chasing a cat around the dripping brush pile.
The sun slipped again behind the cloud cover;
the wind, again, came upon us.  Our youngest
broke into big, cheeky tears—all her spirit
suddenly loose.  And now Hillary felt the cold
reach through her clothing.  So they left,
bound for the warm lights and registers
of their small bedrooms, my wife pulling
the layers off their cold, pink limbs.
I braced the tripod against the wind
and wiped the mist from my beard and nose.
I cocked the timer and took my place,
smiling, relaxed, wistful, smiling.




 
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