Walking Under the Eastern Magnolia

Eustis Estate, Milton, MA

Walking Under the Eastern Magnolia

for Tommy

Too late I think maybe I should have taken

it up to bring home, the blossom fallen

from the Eastern Magnolia, how we came

upon them on a dense bath broad only

near the pond and even then soft-

and- stay- clear- of- the- bank- narrow.  I thought

I’d dry one between some book pages

I mean to read in the future and when I finally

open it I’ll remember everything about this

day which is to say there was an abundance

of sun and we walked in it all afternoon

and looking up into it through the green

leaves of that Magnolia was like going

under water unafraid knowing this time

I’d want the surface again.  Instead of taking

the great saffron centered bruised and buckling under

drops of the morning fury of rain

and putting it into my notebook I carry

it, like a lily that belongs there, to that pond

and set it one or two lengths out and watched

a second two, not more, before I turned back to you.