by Boris Pasternak
How many sticky buds, candle ends
sprout from the branches! Steaming
April. Puberty sweats from the park,
and the forest's blatantly gleaming.
A noose of feathered throats grips
the wood's larynx, a lassoed steer,
netted, like a gladiatorial organ,
it groans steel-piped sonatas here.
Poetry! Be a Greek sponge with suckers,
among green stickiness drenched,
I'll consent, by the sopping wood
of a green-stained garden bench.
Grow sumptuous pleats and flounces,
suck up the gullies and clouds,
Poetry, tonight, I'll squeeze you out
to make the parched sheets flower.
Last updated January 14, 2019