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Eden
You might as well raise a brick wall
six feet high around the garden.
You might as well rig up a scare-
crow in guise of a flaming angel.
Nothing is immune. Not the squash-
hills with their broad flat leaves
in couplets; not the tomato vines,
the eggplant, the strawberries.
You water each row with the sweat
of your brow to create this heaven,
while, invisible in underbrush,
the rabbits wait for you to fall
asleep.
Rapunzel In Green
You’ve been letting her leafy hair
grow longer and longer, till it trails
from hanging pot to the dining room shelf;
up the frame of your father’s desert-scape
in oils; down the corner of the cabinet
past stoneware crocks and a Mexican
tree-of-life, a brass samovar and two
carved Korean ducks.
I beg you, cut her back. Spiders hide
their webs between her heart-
shaped leaves. What insect dreams
climb those wavy green tendrils
to the darkening chlorophyl heart
of a fairytale?
Coal City Review editor Brian Daldorph calls Taylor Graham
" a meticulous wordsmith, writing often of her experiences as a rescue
dog handler. Every word of each poem is carefully considered, and yet there
is fluency and grace to her poems that sometimes seem like the mysterious
language of bird tracks in the snow. Taylor helps us to remember our links
with the natural world." Graham has published four collections,
including Casualties ( Coal City Review) and Looking for Lost
( Hot Pepper Press), as well as poems in myriad publications. She is also
on the editorial board of The Acorn, a regional literary journal
focusing on the western Sierra.
("Ten Poets to Watch", Writer's Digest April 2000)
Email Taylor Graham
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