Clematis, sweet pea, sweet alyssum,
sweet asylum,
adornment’s adamant
heaven scent
to bed an arbor’s
ardor,
trellis’s
yes this
reaching toward
its own reward,
sweet re-aching might redeem
what seems
a frail unfurling to refuge
instead, re-fugue
played in contrapuntal context
shows some pragmatist’s thanks
thriving
not only as noun and verb, but stem, climbing
aster and hydrangea, honeysuckle,
wisteria, twine and tendril
reaching skyward
toward
as if to pick
a warden’s lock,
as if jazz hands, spirit fingers,
fireworks, as our shared shards glitter
on this floodlit stage left empty and the river rising like ovation
out of whose rush and rake and raze and refuse grows again
these petals, pleats, sequins,
pirouettes, curtsies, and klieg-eyed bowers, sure-fired lines
run to sun’s stunning
statement piece, peals on which an hour slips under
the higher wire
and over
the big top we make
of what’s at stake,
tensile
tendrils
corkscrewing up to pour more sunlight,
celebrate
the act
we make of the temporary fact of us.
This poem incorporating the theme of gratitude was written in celebration of The Englert Theatre in Iowa City and read at the October 2014 event “Celebrating Local: 10 Years of the New Englert.”
