Poems by Alicia Ostriker
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photo by Amy Meier
A Young Woman, A Tree
by Alicia Ostriker
From Canary Fall 2016
Alicia lives in Manhattan Valley, formed by an east-west slash in the granite bedrock that goes downhill from Central Park west to the Hudson River. A stream once flowed down it; now wind from the river funnels up.
i.
The life spills over, some days.
She cannot be at rest,
wishes she could explode
like that red tree--
the one that bursts into fire
all this week.
Senses her infinite smallness
but can't seize it,
recognizes the folly of desire,
the folly of withdrawal--
kicks at the curb, the pavement,
if only she could, at this moment,
when what she's doing is plodding
to the bus stop, to go to school,
passing that fiery tree--if only she could
be making love,
be making poetry,
be exploding, be speeding through the universe
like a photon, like a shower
of yellow blazes--
she believes if she could only overtake
the rising rhythm of things, of her own electrons,
then she would be at rest--
if she could forget school,
climb the tree,
be the tree,
burn like that.
ii.
She doesn't know yet, how could she,
that this same need
is going to explode every September
and that in forty years the idea will strike her
from no apparent source, in a laundromat
between a washer and a dryer,
like one of those electric bulbs
lighting up near a character's head in a comic strip--
there in that naked and soiled place
with its detergent machines,
its speckled fluorescent lights,
its lint piles broomed into corners,
as she fumbles for quarters
and dimes, she will start to chuckle and double over
into the plastic basket's
mountain of wet
bedsheets and bulky overalls--
Old lady! she'll grin, beguiled at herself,
Old lady! The desire
to burn is already a burning!
How about that!
iii.
Meanwhile, the maple
has also survived, and thinks
it owes its longevity
to its location
between a bus stop
and a bar, and to its uniquely
mutant appetite for pollutants:
carbon monoxide, alcohol, spit...
the truth is, it enjoys city life.
Regular working people suffer so grossly
it makes a tree feel happier
having nothing to do
but feel its thousand orgasms each spring,
or stretch its limbs during the windy days
that are like a Swedish massage,
or swoon into the fall
among its delicious rain patters,
its saffron and scarlet flamings.
Then, when the tethered leaves
Snatch themselves away like desperate
children ardent for freedom,
it will let itself sigh, feel wise
and resigned, and draw
its thoughts downward toward its other crown,
the secret leafless system
that digs in dark
its thick intelligent arms
and stubborn hands
under the shops, the streets,
the subway, the granite
the sewage pipes'
cold slime,
as deep as that.
© Alicia Ostriker
Everything alive
by Alicia Ostriker
From Canary Spring 2021
Everything alive wants to surge and wilt
by its own rules, the tide in its veins, and in April
the green force is irresistible
but one great rule is life’s tenacious webbiness
another great rule is change
nothing stands alone, everything succeeds
and disappears
so the plants close their eyes in the rain
and robins drink their bliss
From the "Almanac" sequence in Alicia’s poetry collection, The Book of Seventy.
© Alicia Ostriker
It rains it thaws
by Alicia Ostriker
From Canary Spring 2021
It rains it thaws the action is wild down there
the silvery cold delicious wetness
is seeping in
rootlets that taste it begin to grasp and shove
my god I feel it happening through my shoes
a thousand baby worms threaded from their cradles
already nudge the softening dirt
a thousand rootlets
open their lips
From the "Almanac" sequence in Alicia’s poetry collection, The Book of Seventy.
© Alicia Ostriker
Late Winter in Plague Time
by Alicia Ostriker
We permit ourselves
a walk every day
we believe outdoors is safe
we remove our masks
and the trees in Riverside Park
are so individual
the abrupt bends and
swerves of their boughs clearly
demonstrating free will
they pump up
our hopefulness
and our temporary happiness
and one day crossing the street to the park
something in the air not wind
not fragrance
presses against my body
surges like surf
from the row of leafless sycamores
what can it be oh
it must be the sap rising yes
today must be the day the sap
begins to rise
and the bodies of trees are so excited
they emit waves of a chemical
science cannot yet name
which my own body
can sense
even in the midst of winter
even in the midst of plague
© Alicia Ostriker
Love
by Alicia Ostriker
From Canary Autumn 2009
Too late for mating season
what is the cardinal doing
all week flying between
the feeder outside my kitchen
and the hedge by the brick wall
where a female or is it a juvenile
waits with needy beak open
yellow-pink inside--not cheeping but
vibrating its wings so fast
they blur like a hummingbird’s
it’s the same thing
girls do with their eyelashes
the adult male pecks some seed
for himself then gracefully swoops
to the brown one’s low branch
and feeds her
and gets some for himself
and feeds her again
all week
I am almost getting stoned
just from watching
Author Photo by Amy Meier
© Alicia Ostriker
Now Spring
by Alicia Ostriker
Now spring cries out again, I'm here, I'm here
until tulips roar like lions, daffodils scream like witches,
robins puff their chests out, sumptuous maples shout
for a wind to come over and wrestle, but as for us
we belong to the species that thinks it can change the laws
we are the ones that trample and soar and bulldoze
what interferes--she wipes mud from her brow, I'm here
in my beauteous majesty, but we are a little terrified
just half recalling how once we welcomed her
Now her excitement subsides
Now her excitement subsides like a mirage
a winged stillness underneath the shrieks
of children out of school is almost audible
and I too seem to have achieve tranquility
as i walk along ringing a bell of silence
each blooming shrub on a lawn, each wildflower
by the road—the lipsticked azalea, the brass daylily--
seems to offer itself: Aren’t you Whitman’s daughter?
Please look at me, please love me
Still a few
Still a few glorious flying amber leaves
but the dark is rising
the grass withered the cones broken
if we think of the countless seeds
wasted by every tree every year
the way each life produces so much death
is a sort of agony and still each seed
down in the dirt is gambling or voting
hoping dear November for the best
© Alicia Ostriker