“Anniversarily” by Nicholas Bradley
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Anniversarily” by Nicholas Bradley.
Anniversarily
By Nicholas Bradley
When the Japanese maple on the sixth
of November gave up the old ghost
in the viridian machine and made
of the lawn a wine-dark sea, a tomato
bisque, a bloodbath, and stood
stark, denuded as kids on the verge
of their weekly tub (forgive us, weโve
been harried and besides they rinsed
at the pool after practice), naked
as the skyline at sunrise, bare-assed
but for a catsuit of lichen and moss โ
When the formerly red tree shed its leaves
all over the shed and the patio
in conspiracy with every other
maple on the block as if to say no,
my thin-skinned chum, it wonโt be long
until winter is here, not on the seventh
or even the eighth but soon (and soon after
it will be warm enough that you might
be a little less hurried, love, as you step
in and out of your natal suit
to start and finish each lengthening day) โ
Then, then it was high time to fetch the rake
from the garage and start the sultry graft.
Copyright ยฉ Nicholas Bradley
Nicholas Bradley lives in Victoria, BC โ near Sitchanalth, in lษkฬสทษลษn territory. He teaches Canadian literature and environmental writing at the University of Victoria and is the author of two books of poetry: Rain Shadow (University of Alberta Press, 2018) and Before Combustion (Gaspereau Press, 2023).
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