Theodora Goss: Poems

The Poet’s Garden
by Theodora Goss

Last summer, in my garden,
instead of roses, I planted poems —
some of those many-petaled varieties
grown medicinally within the hortus conclusus
of medieval monasteries, some influenced
by French horticulture — Verlaine and Baudelaire
would have liked them. Some from countries
like Ireland and India and Argentina, all places
where poetry is particularly cultivated.
And then there were the hybrids interbred
with Chinese verse in the twentieth century.
They were lovely, and so easy to care for!

They grew in all shades from white
as apple blossoms or the foam on waves
to deepest crimson like the heart’s blood
and a wide range of pinks, yellows, apricots,
some as delicately tinted as summer dresses,
some the deep violet of twilight, even blue —
which is rare in flowers, but not in poems.
They did not wilt when the drought came,
they withstood the flood and flowered
all summer long, continuing deep
into autumn, dropping their petals only
when the snows of winter silenced everything.

If you are planting a garden,
I highly recommend poems — they are so sturdy
and resilient, seldom bothered by insects.
Just keep in mind that you must dig
a hole twice as deep and wide as the root ball,
and they repay a hard pruning.

(The image is The Rose Garden by Daniel Ridgway Knight.)

The Impressionists
by Theodora Goss

The first Impressionists were the trees —
look how they reflect themselves in the water,
broken up by the movement of the water,
the branches darker, the leaves lit from above,
reflected on the surface like small lanterns.
The resulting image (captured on the surface,
always changing) is about light, about movement,
about impermanence — just what an Impressionist
painting should be, better than a Monet
or a Renoir, as good as a Caillebotte, the trees
painting themselves with light on the green water,
in which you can faintly see the purple shadows
of catfish passing underneath.

When the wind blows through their branches,
the trees nod to one another, like artists
whispering in a gallery: Look at my latest,
I think it’s my best so far, maybe my masterpiece.
And the ducks, paddling through this composition,
to the consternation of the artists, quack loudly
about how they, cutting through the water,
have improved the picture.

(The image is Banks of the Yerres by Gustave Caillebotte.)

The Pond in Late Summer
by Theodora Goss

Today I went to the pond
and saw some catfish moving under the water.
The broadleaf arrowhead was blooming, its white flowers,
arranged along a raceme and whorled by threes,
three-petaled, looked up at the sky with a yellow eye
at each center, like a miniature sun emerging
from clouds. There was a turtle poking its head
up out of the duckweed. The last of the lilypads floated
on the surface. The willows still hung
their long tresses down into their own green reflections.
Across the pond, a cardinal flashed red. Above, the clouds
(the real ones) were gray with the promise of rain.
And I thought, this is the heaven
we were promised. If we can’t find it here,
we will not find it elsewhere.

(The image is Weeping Willow and Water-Lily Pond by Claude Monet.)

The Beech Forest
by Theodora Goss

Underneath the trees
there were beech leaves
fallen the previous autumn.
We walked over them
hand in hand, each of us pensive,
thinking about time and its passing,
wondering what the future would bring,
uncertain about almost everything
except how fortunate we were
to be there under the beech trees
in late summer
together.

(The image is The Beech Trees by T.C. Steele.)

September Afternoon
by Theodora Goss

I cannot explain
the glory of this world. There are no words
adequate, no adjectives that would suffice —
beauty, splendor, wonder — none sufficient to make you
stop and rejoice, to throw up your hands in prayer
and gratitude. No, I cannot explain. All I can do
is show you, under gray skies,
the last of the summer’s roses bowed down with rain.

(The image is Gathering Roses by Daniel Ridgway Knight.)

A Trip to the Seashore
by Theodora Goss

You said the waves must love the strand:
look how they reach for her, ceaselessly, ceaselessly
stretching their hands, as though perhaps this time
they might capture her in their translucent green arms,
always reaching but never quite grasping her,
never clasping but breaking and scattering
on the gray rocks,
shattering into white foam.

And then we went home.

(The image is Summer Evening at Skagen Beach by Peder Severin Kroyer.)

The Wildflower Garden
by Theodora Goss

There is a bee
busy
in the purple tuft of the knapweed,
perfectly happy —
like me, actually,
hidden among the Queen Anne’s lace
and goldenrod, sitting and therefore
as small as a child, pretending
there is nothing beyond this — the forest
of knapweed and Queen Anne’s lace
and goldenrod, that the rest of the world
does not exist — just this secret grove
of sunshine and steady buzzing,
these stalks towering above me
arrayed in gold and white and purple,
with the bees and I
and a random butterfly
its only inhabitants
forever.

(The image is Dans la Prairie by Claude Monet.)