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GREEN LEAVES

For Clara Ellen Swartz

I.We slid out of the street-locked park,—A rolling, curving stretch of woodMay-odorous, and proudly green,—Into cleft streets, whose bricked walls stoodIn stolid death, as our machineSkidded and righted, like some darkLow-flying creature, fleeing a shout.We wound and swirled and bent about,Yet still the oddly scattered treesWatched us, in curious disdain. . . .And then we found a park again,And a triumphant horde of theseGreen guardians of green mysteries.
Out of the green—into the green—And all the bricked-up blocks betweenBlurred to a dulling monochrome:Here was our first and our last home.
II.We saw trees watch us, as we spedThrough bricked streets dying or already dead.

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