POEMS
Charles Tomlinson
The Question
The path to the fieldgate is covered in leaves
And the blossom whose name I failed to learn
Has disappeared with summer, its foliage
Bearing the bruises of the season. I must defer
That learning now to another year
When frost, shearing back to anatomy
The parallels of these hedges I walk between,
Will have cleansed a way through winter
And out beyond, to where in the rising scent
The question still to be pondered is hanging in air.
A N ame on the Map
I ask myself what Fishkill must be like.
There is a river pouring into town
Under its elegant bridge; I scan the house-fronts
For their carpentered rhythmic trim, baroque
Curlicues in a wilderness that was.
It is the name drives the imagination back
To when the fish were plentiful, the Indians
With wet, red arms spearing up shad on shad
Out of the falls. Next time I cross the state,
I shall investigate the curio shops,
And perhaps recover from the dust
Some modest sketch, composed - though left unsigned
By the hand of (could it be?) Church or Bierstadt -
One closing winter afternoon just when
The artist was not thinking about mountains:
"Fishkill in February", in whites and gold,
And let into the sky in bold relief,
The cross above the college towards sunset.
