Vermont and Quebec: Syrup Harvesting in the Spring
Just how does poetry escape from men?
It’s too simplistic if we say it thrums
Out from the skull, though, yes, it is just when
It’s rising that it coalesces, comes
Out through the pregnant cracks in bone,
Or maybe just the joins, or through the teeth.
Whatever way the words leak out, their tone
Will be impacted by the lips and sheath
Of tongue if lines are breathed. Yet it is hands,
Those things most filled with bones of any part
Of poets, digits with their wedding bands
(And not) that often help the words elude the heart
Which otherwise might keep them in its trap,
That scarlet maple lovers come to tap.