Maples in a Spruce Forest
by John Updike
They live by attenuation,
Straining, vine-thin,
Up to gaps their gold leaves crowd
Like drowning faces surfacing.
Wherever dappled sun persists,
Shy leaves work photosynthesis;
Until I saw these slender doomed,
I did not know what a maple is.
The life that plumps the oval
In the open meadow full
Is beggared here, distended toward
The dying light available.
Maturity of sullen spruce
Murders these deciduous;
A little while, the fretted gloom
Is dappled with chartreuse.
(June 2, 1961)
No comments:
Post a Comment