Patricia Clark | The Atlantic 2019 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights,2010:39-308068<p>A twenty-inch feather with black bars. Stones I’ve picked up. <br> An acorn with its cap beside it like a cup. </p><p>Chunks of gypsum from a mine I explored, <br> a postcard of a heron—eye glittering, not bored. </p><p>Pens and pencils nestled in a metal box. <br> A magnifying glass for peering at flowers and rocks. </p><p>A clump of lichen, gray-blue, smelling like smoke. <br> One pressed leaf with a black spot—from an eighty-foot oak. </p><p>Dusty gold wing of a half-eaten moth— <br> so slender it wriggled in, hid under a cloth. </p><p>A three-pronged branch tip—with unopened buds. <br> Whatever ripe swelling, they ended up duds. </p><p>Ahead through the glass stand our woods going bare— <br> pine needles, dappled ground, color smearing the air. </p>Patricia Clark,2003:50-378551<p>If you ever saw my father in shorts,</p><br><p> you wouldn't forget his stick-thin legs,</p><br><p> the knees knobby as windfall dwarf apples.</p><p> And the only time I saw him ride a bike,</p><br><p> Oakes Street, I think, he pedaled "no hands"</p><br><p> down the street to show me the stance.</p><p> He wasn't a runner either, though he'd move</p><br><p> at a quick trot when trouble came to our door -</p><br><p> usually when the twins caught somebody's wrath.</p><p> Once they set an oatgrass field on fire, and trucks</p><br><p> came, red and furious down the boulevard.</p><br><p> Another time, after a morning of water-fat balloons</p><p> lobbed at cars, the cops shadowed our porch.</p><br><p> Our father was an ambler, a stroller, a tall stander.</p><br><p> I can see him, heron-alert, bareheaded,</p><p> the waters of the Satsop or Nooksack, the cold</p><br><p> Chehalis, up past his knees, casting a line</p><br><p> among boulders, deadwood, and drop-offs.</p><br><p> Deep, moving water his abiding friend.</p><br>Patricia Clark Father on a,2002:50-378420<p>Most watery of all the trees, these willows</p><br><p> stand in water. Ice pools around the ankles of willows.</p><p> A tree's name should reveal its nature.</p><br><p><i>Salix babylonica</i>: the first word is for willow.</p><p> Doesn't it sound stretchy and pliable?</p><br><p><i>Babylonica</i> is for the weeping part of willow.</p><p> From a quotation in Psalms: by the rivers of Babylon</p><br><p> we wept. The people hung harps on willows.</p><p> The weight gave them a bent, permanent shape.</p><br><p> A girl flings her hair down, a young willow.</p><p> A golden color, like a shout, all the length</p><br><p> of the fronds. They light up the willow.</p><p> Nearby on the concrete ramp, an ice-filled boat</p><br><p> waits for the sun to unmoor it, sail it past the willows.</p><p> In the season of thaw, this ice giving way.</p><br><p> By the rivers of America, we wept these willows.</p>Patricia Clark Ghazal2002-04-01T00:00:00-05:002014-09-24T17:24:49-04:00