Bad News
In the morning there was a Linden tree
whose whole body looked on fire.
Its branches had grown in a desperate way.
It came closer, knowing I’d be trying to write something later
and that I would almost certainly want a tree in it.
In the afternoon a poet came to see me, worried
that her cover wasn’t blue enough,
but when she saw it she was satisfied.
I love to make a poet happy. I love to be afraid
that I will anger a poet and then to make them happy.
In the evening a family of quail gathered on the road
as I approached, and I could tell they had bad news.
But when I came close, they couldn’t
bring themselves to say it, and ran away really fast.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, they called. Not today.