National Poetry Month: J.D. McClatchy

From Feb. 25, 2008, New Yorker. I haven't read much of his other work, but I love this one (I'm not usually a big fan of what gets published in the New Yorker by way of poetry... sometimes, but not often)The poem won't maintain its original formatting here...at least not in a way that I can figure out...so just imagine a little more air in it, more indents, a little bit tree-like:

Chinese Poem
by J.D. McClatchy

Whatever change you were considering,
Do not plant another tree in the garden.
One tree means four seasons of sadness:
What is going,
What is coming,
What will not come,
What cannot go.

Here in bed, through the south window
I can see the moon watching us both,
Someone's hand around its clump of light.
Yours? I know you are sitting out there,
Looking at silver bloom against black.

That drop from your cup on the night sky's
Lacquer you wipe away with your sleeve
As if its pleated thickets were the wide space
Between us, though you know as well as I do
This autumn is no different from the last.


Coming up in May on Outloud: Laura will attempt to "grow a boyfriend," courtesy of her friend L.P. The package says "can grow to 600% his original size" (note that the original size of the boyfriend is 3/4 of an inch...That's his whole body, mind you, en total, not just the one part. But while we're on that...What if nothing grew except that one part, 600%! Imagine? Oh lord...we are talking building-sized).