Hayden Saunier

Rubus Idaeus

When we transplanted these raspberry canes
pulled wild from the hedgerows, we tied
them up with the uncoiled electrical guts 
of an old boat trailer’s brake lights, looped
plastic color-coded wires post to post, with
no need to think of circuitry or poles or how
current gets employed to twist confession
from the powerless, our purpose only to give
the thorny gestures of these sprays a place
to prosper, drape, to rest their red and golden
berries far from where they first took root
near ancient Troy. Rubus idaeus. A rose bush
on Mount Ida taught itself to transform blossoms
into sugared bodies made from sun,
earth, rain, build cups of sweetness
out of aggregated drupelets, offer sustenance
to every passerby— a trait not widespread
among humans. Or so the story goes.
Today, we watch the news, then tighten
red, green, yellow cords gone slack from winter’s
weight with a twisting action that recalls
the root of torture—twist of elbow, wrist,
or rack, or wire on a cathode—tricks to take apart
a man. We can’t escape the things we know.
Everything that’s ever happened is all here,
always, every day. No matter what we grow,
how small a plot we till, what walls we build,
the world keeps showing up: the wars, the boats,
uprootings, conquest, rape, how the knots
that hold the harvest also hold garrote and noose.
A feathery spray brushes a not yet saw-toothed
green across my hand. Making sweetness
can be learned, the story says that too.
Come back midsummer, you’ll see then.
We’ll sit in shade, eat all the berries that we can.

Wheel

There is a how to it but not a why,
we know enough to know that much, not more,

the way upturned tree roots are birds flown into sky
as if the point is to become what we are not—

we know enough to know that much, not more.
In early spring our footsteps green the path

as if the point is to become ourselves
and then, in time, become an otherness

in early spring. Our footsteps green the path
we’ve walked together through tall woods

which is an otherness we will become in time
while everything around us wheels and turns.

We’ve walked together through tall woods
in every season as one unrolls to the next

while trees and birds around us wheel and turn
to green the path we will become in time.

The point is to become what we are not.
Birds slowly sail through earth; tree roots learn sky.

We know enough to know that much, not more.
There is a how to it but not a why.

Back to Issue IX…