ODE TO THE FIRST PEACH by Ellen Bass Only one insect has feasted here — a clear stub of resin plugs the scar. And the hollow where the stem was severed shines with juice. The fur still silvered like a caul. Even in the next minute, the hairs will darken, turn more golden in my […]

NOVEMBER, REMEMBERING VOLTAIRE by Jane Hirshfield In the evenings I scrape my fingernails clean, hunt through old catalogues for new seed, oil workboots and shears. This garden is no metaphor — more a task that swallows you into itself, earth using, as always, everything it can. I lend myself to unpromising winter dirt with leaf-mold […]

  CONSIDERING THE SNAIL by Thom Gunn The snail pushes through a green night, for the grass is heavy with water and meets over the bright path he makes, where rain has darkened the earth’s dark. He moves in a wood of desire, pale antlers barely stirring as he hunts. I cannot tell what power […]

A SMALL NEEDFUL FACT by Ross Gay Is that Eric Garner worked for some time for the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, which means, perhaps, that with his very large hands, perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow, […]

  BLACK CHERRIES by W.S. Merwin Late in May as the light lengthens toward summer the young goldfinches flutter down through the day for the first time to find themselves among fallen petals cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows of the garden beside the old house after a cold spring with no rain […]