Good on the noise pollution, & the hint that might hurt the tree, as much as the rest of it…
That seems to me the heart of the poem, Max…
Doug
> On Nov 4, 2015, at 9:12 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Under the Plane Tree
>
> Turning a corner on Capitol
> Hill North, dog and I startle:
> the nerve-wracking metal din
> of some big rackety machine!
>
> Seattle Parks and Recreation
> have sent a pickup truck proudly
> logo-ed, and a powerful
> front-end-loader now loudly
>
> scooping up the fallen leaves
> from my favorite plane tree
> that’s constantly impressed me
> here for over twelve months.
>
> Tall, broad, shapely, not lopped like
> so many city trees; in a grassy
> triangle. Summer's youth leaned bikes
> on its mottled trunk, camping overnight!
>
> I’d rather person-power took
> leaves quietly - man with rake!
> Ah, there’s one! straight back,
> strong arms, and muffled
>
> after last night’s almost-frost.
> Elsewhere these men are armed
> with leaf-litter-blowers
> of high-decibel powers.
>
> Yesterday’s prompted - between
> me and another street-wanderer
> of my extreme vintage - mimed
> exchanges: ‘Can’t hear you!
>
> Dreadful din!’ ‘Noise pollution!’
> It’s Fall (as I’ve learned to say,
> still preferring ‘autumn’
> in my bookish way)
>
> not of course just here
> but ‘temperate latitudes’
> round this hemisphere -
> while Melbourne dudes
>
> (so I read in The Age online)
> under Carlton’s London planes
> are stuffed with springtime’s
> pollen till their sinuses
>
> succumb, and worse! - fibres
> that choke! Strange! I must be immune.
> Keep your distance, plane-tree lovers,
> maybe wear masks like canny Japanese.
>
> Find shops and cafes far from these
> lovely dangerous deciduous trees.
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Done in by creation itself.
I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
Robert Kroetsch.
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