"Vertical" by Linda Pastan

Perhaps the purpose

of leaves is to conceal

the verticality

of trees

which we notice

in December

as if for the first time:

row after row

of dark forms

yearning upwards.

And since we will be

horizontal ourselves

for so long,

let us now honor

the gods

of the vertical:

stalks of wheat

which to the ant

must seem as high

as these trees do to us,

silos and

telephone poles,

stalagmites

and skyscrapers.

But most of all

these winter oaks,

these soft-fleshed poplars,

this birch

whose bark is like

roughened skin

against which I lean

my chilled head,

not ready

to lie down.

"Vertical" by Linda Pastan, from Traveling Light. © Norton, 2010. 

"Flowers" by Linda Pastan

Oak Park Conservatory, Oak Park, Illinois 

The deep strangeness of

flowers in winter--

the orange of clivia,

or this creamy white rose

in its stoneware

vase, while outside

another white

like petals drifting down.

Is it real?

a visitor asks,

meaning the odd magenta

orchid on our sill

unnatural

as makeup on a child.

It's freezing all around us--

salt cold on the lips,

the flinty blacks and grays

of January in any northern city,

and flowers

everywhere:

in the supermarket

by cans of juice,

filling the heated stalls

near the river--

secular lilies engorged

with scent,

notched tulips, crimson

and pink, ablaze

in the icy

corridors of winter.

"Flowers" by Linda Pastan, from Traveling Light, © Norton, 2010

"September," by Linda Pastan

it rained in my sleep

and in the morning the fields were wet

I dreamed of artillery
of the thunder of horses

in the morning the fields were strewn
with twigs and leaves

as if after a battle
or a sudden journey

I went to sleep in the summer
I dreamed of rain

in the morning the fields were wet
and it was autumn

"September" by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998. © W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.