How could you leave your family?
My father couldn’t understand, but I’ve come anyway,
a week and a half in the foothills of Virginia,
to write and work.  I’m learning
the names of southern trees:  Post Oak,
smaller than White, but the same
round-lobed form; Pin Oak, short pin-like twigs 
cluttering the horizontal branches, making an ID
easy in winter; and Chestnut Oak, whose leaves
are more chestnut than oak, thriving in dry rocky soil.
I’ve been working in some stony ground myself,
too long from my desk, never enough time to write. 
But now, I’m away from my children and husband,
that good man, who still wants me in his bed after nearly
thirty years.  Here, a cardinal burns in the hedgerow, a red coal—
 
Last July, we watched the fireworks at a fairgrounds
in another small Virginia town.  We brought our eastern
cynicism to the medley of patriotic tunes, the slide show
with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.  The crowd oohed 
and aahed as golden chrysanthemums, huge dandelions, 
fountains of red, white and blue stars bloomed in the black field 
of the sky.  So easy to forget how fireworks were invented,
how they mimic rocket fire, bombs, artillery bursts.  Just
when you think they’re over, they come and come again.  
 
Who knew that our bodies could generate their own heat?  
Who knew how many kinds of oak trees grew in the woods?  
Who knew how many names there were for love—
Ironing a Shirt, Making a Sandwich, Changing the Oil?