Great Piece of Turf, by Amy Phimister

Great Piece of Turf, by Albrecht Dürer (German) 1503

Great Piece of Turf
 
after Diane Seuss’ poem Young Hare
 
This is the companion to the other one
the one we like better
because a lovely brown rabbit twitches
instead of a mud flat of weeds sitting inert
 
The one we like better is not
a fist of green cock’s foot, creeping bent,
a mud flat of weeds sitting inert
smooth meadow-grass, star-shaped daisy, dandelion
 
like a bunched up fist including
hounds-tongue, yarrow, plantain
yes, meadow-grass with daisies and blowball
an untidy, higgledy-piggledy, mishmash of
 
gypsy flower, milfoil, fleawort
hodgepodge, swimming green stems
untidy, higgledy-piggledy, mishmash
with wildly tangled roots exposed
 
hodgepodge, swimming green stems
like the muscles in a hand Leonardo sketched
with wildly tangled roots exposed
this verdant chaos is painted by you
 
using the muscles in your hand 
Albrecht, a sign that your mind was able
to delineate this verdant chaos you painted 
but not to order it, not in this case
 
Albrecht, a sign of your complex mind
it is oh so lovely this detailed scrub of wild weeds
not ordered, not organized, not gathered
I can even smell the peppery must of dandelion
 
Lovely and detailed is this scrub with
the waft of rosemary in yarrow
peppery must of dandelion
the drift of mint from daisies
 
The scent glide in yarrow
the green colours       the olives, the lime
drift of mint
chartreuse with its blinding shine,
 
the green colours    the olives and lime
the depth of Kelly     tongue- touched sea foam
chartreuse with its shiny pistachio.
 I can taste them too
 
the depth of Kelly    tongue –touched sea foam
like melting green ice cream 
the taste of chocolate mint cookies 
and while you didn’t sketch a secret window
 
in the melting ice cream leaves
The glint on the meadow grass
contains no secret sketch 
like the window reflected in the rabbit’s eye 
 
the glint on the meadow grass
mirrors back to us what we want to see
in the window     in the hare’s eye
ourselves looking in 

Amy Phimister

Amy Phimister retired in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.  She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and has been published by WFOP, Yardstick Books, several anthologies and The Ekphrastic Review, and was twice a finalist for the Hal Prize. She published a children’s book in 2021 called ABC the Animals, a scavenger hunt through the alphabet.