IN PRAISE OF THE CREEPING BELLFLOWER

 

Campanula rapunculoides

Creepy colonist of asphalt cracks, green
grower in pea gravel, your sole sin
is surviving and thriving where folks prefer
not to behold pale purple bells ringing
in the breeze. Wringing hands, gardeners
enamoured of clean lines and order
bemoan your flagrant seed-and-rhizome
spread, your tenacious clasp, that knack for digging
in, for hanging on, for making home
wherever you set foot, no matter
how much shade we cast upon your nodding
heads and saw-blade leaves. You’re here, for better,
for worse, pretty bluebell, rugged rampion,
and our task is to fashion your welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Essay online

An old essay of mine on Irving Layton's involvement in the Black Mountain School, published in Canadian Poetry, is now available online.

GOOD TO BE LUCKY

How often, it seems to me, an error

proves to be the key that opens doors

 

to unforeseen prosperity, while ex-

ecutions less imperfect in their ex-

cellence lead nowhere, as when a mishit

dribbler sparks a rally, while the blistered

liner settles into leather, to snuff

the home team’s hopes. This is the vexing stuff

of life and luck. I wish that I could forecast

which fuckups would prove fruitful, but the past

discloses no mysteries in advance

and the dancer stays soldered to the dance.

We have made our share of missteps, but the longer

we play through them, persevere, the stronger

grows our bond. Impeccability is not

our lot. We’re vain. We sin. We take weak shots

at glory, we soar too high, we tumble

to earth, find our feet again—and stumble

into thickets dark and deep. We are lost

and found and lack the wit to grasp and gloss

our going, knowing only where we’ve been,

dust motes moved by static on a shifting screen.

ZW reads poems by John Clare and Louis MacNeice

ZW reads My Last Duchess

ZW reads poems inspired by Oliver Sacks

ZW reads A Prayer for My Daughter by WB Yeats