美國文學首頁   /   The 20th Century -- Second Half 二十世紀 -- 後半  /  作家  /  Rita  Dove  麗塔•達夫  /  作品
The Cooper Beech
作者Author  /  Rita  Dove  麗塔•達夫

The  Copper Beech

Rita Dove

Aristocrat among patriarchs, this
noble mutation is the best
specimen of Rococo

in the park of the castle
at Erpenberg.
The widely-traveled Baroness

returned
from a South American expedition
with any number of plants and a few

horticultural innovations.
This trailing beech became Erpenberg's
tree of grief, their

melancholy individualist,
the park philosopher.
Eight meters above lawn

the tousled crown
rises, her many plaited branches falling
like green water

earthwards, a cascade of leaves.
The aesthetic principles
of the period: branches

pruned late to heal
into knots, proud flesh ascending
the trunk:

living architecture. 

   
 
   
From Selected Poems, Pantheon Books, c 1993 by Rita Dove. This web site use by agreement with the author. All rights reserved
   
 
   
文本
Copyright ©2009 國科會人文學中心 All Rights Reserved.