The Figure on the Hill

When I saw the figure on the crown of the hill,

high above the city, standing perfectly still

against a sky so saturated with the late-

afternoon, late-summer Pacific light

that granules of it seemed to have come out

of solution, like a fine precipitate

of crystals hanging in the brightened air,

I thought whoever it was standing up there

must be experiencing some heightened state

of being, or thinking—or its opposite,

thoughtlessly enraptured by the view.

Or maybe, looking again, it was a statue

of Jesus or a saint, placed there to bestow

a ceaseless blessing on the city below.

Only after a good five minutes did I see

that the figure was actually a tree—

some kind of cypress, probably, or cedar.

I was both amused and let down by my error.

Not only had I made the tree a person,

but I'd also given it a vision,

which seemed to linger in the light-charged air

around the tree's green flame, then disappear.

--Jeffrey Harrison

Made Bed

Sometimes it’s the only thing right

with the world.

What we say is an excess

given to wrinkling,

crimps obscuring seams,

the way we act.

Nothing neat about that.

Now behold the power of

smoothed sheets, the reach

of a starched bed skirt draped

like Niagara airbrushed.

A small pillow rests dead center,

its perfect pintucks cooing

order, order.

--me

The Escaped Gorilla [I'm currently taking a poetry class w/ DW.]

When he walked out in the park that early evening

just before closing time, he didn't take

the nearest blonde in one arm and climb a tree

to wait for the camera crews. He didn't savage

anyone in uniform, upend cars

or beat his chest or scream, and nobody screamed

when they found him hiding behind the holly hedge

by the zoo office where he waited for someone

to take him by the hand and walk with him

around two corners and along a pathway

through the one door that wasn't supposed to be open

and back to the oblong place with the hard sky

where all of his unbreakable toys were waiting

to be broken, with the wall he could see through,

but not as far as the place he almost remembered,

which was too far away to be anywhere.

--David Wagoner

In Trackless Woods

In trackless woods, it puzzled me to find

Four great rock maples seemingly aligned,

As if they had been set out in a row

Before some house a century ago,

To edge the property and lend some shade.

I looked to see if ancient wheels had made

Old ruts to which the trees ran parallel,

But there were none, so far as I could tell—

There'd been no roadway. Nor could I find the square

Depression of a cellar anywhere,

And so I tramped on further, to survey

Amazing patterns in a hornbeam spray

Or spirals in a pine cone, under trees

Not subject to our stiff geometries.

--Richard Wilbur