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Saucy

Saucy black-eyed susan
calls finches who travel
in pairs, zoom up
and down wavery heat hills. 

They hear, come,
barely bending her stalk
pecking seeds out. 
Susan could be angry—
she spends much time
making those seeds,

but she calls
the finches again.  They
return, take more,
she's never empty,
often's got plenty,

yellow blossoms
hard at work, summer
twining around the garage,
finches flying over
orange jugs

of a blooming
runner bean.



Tropicana Rose, 6:37 A.M., Sunday, June 4

My garden never seems rooted
to earth—color craters
call me to land, pink meadow
rues wink—

and roses!  Snowfire's
first lipstick-on-the-moon bloom,
Desert Peace's Mojave movie,
Ballerina's plethora-in-pink 

all still free of beetles and borers. 
Scent pulls me to the back
corner by purple
coneflowers—

the Tropicana rose,
fully open.  I drift
on pinkish-red waves,
sink, fear no drowning.

Iris

blooms
brief
uncringing
from hard
winters
preparing
a singular
shade
of purple
or apricot
so much fight
under snow
they know
they must
open
quickly
quickly
go



Worry Warts

In the living room we talk
of Nancy Sinatra, diabetes,
heaters and eventually

the garden.  All our chat
roads lead there—even/
especially in early February,
brown leaves hiding shoots
escaping bulbs, dangerously.
Tiny green periscopes poke up. 

I say crocuses worry me,
it's too early, they should lock
themselves tight in corm homes
and wait.  You worry about tulips
by the side of the house
since March can snarl—

we return to Nancy Sinatra,
play her Sugar CD.  Almost 40
degrees outside.  Bulbs and corms
make plans, know they'll
outlast any snowflake,
outrun cold snaps.  Morning,

hyacinths break the soil. 
Not wearing coats. 
Not turning back.



Walking to Weick

I pass fishermen, hairy
bellies in May sunlight. 
Boats head out to Greifswald Bay,
clowns in a floating circus. 

Sweeps of canola
on the other shore, yellow
wind breath, earth's secret

eyes on stems.  Where
the Ryck River meets the Baltic,
a fishing village, Weick. 
The sea writes
down nothing.  I find a bench,

start writing—my ink, clouds,
my paper, water.   

KENNETH POBO chapbook, KENNETH POBO'S GREATEST HITS, was published by Pudding House Press in June 2002.  Higganum Hills Books brought out his collection ORDERING: A SEASON IN MY GARDEN in 2001.  He enjoys gardening and is pleased to report that his passion flower bloomed yesterday as did his Mexican flame vine.  His essay on Jeanette Winterson is coming out in FAKE CITY SYNDOME, an essay collection published this August from red Hen Press.   His work will also appear in the anthology, AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES EVERYONE BLIND (Regent Press).

Click here to read more of Ken Pobo's poetry in ForPoetry.com  And click here to read a review on Pobo's book, Ordering: A Season in my Garden by Jacqueline Marcus.

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