Fall Arrangement
Blackjack oak is angry stuff,
flaring, red-bronze, sabre-tough;
pine is raw and needle-green,
arrow-hearted, bitter, lean.
Their sharp vibrating branches bent
to be a bedroom ornament,
they cut and slash the stagnant air,
trapped in sweet white earthenware.
The oak remembers a ragged crag
where evil buzzards slope and sag;
the pine remembers skeleton skies
more piercing blue than paradise.
Flaring, thrusting with blade and spine,
the angry oak, the bitter pine
will burst the jug, the room and all,
and leap to the precipice of fall.
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