Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Peach Tree

I really hate poetry. Reading it always reminds me of the commercial for nonstick pans with the egg sliding right off. My mind is the pan and the poem is the egg. So what in the world would make me write a poem? The challenge. And I think I did pretty good. This is what I turned into my Honors writing course. I got my grade back last week and got 29/30 points for the poem. Good enough, I think. This is based on Wallace Stevens "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Mary Ross

Joshua Cochran

Writing 102 Honors

February 28, 2011

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Peach Tree

I

Above endless rainless landscapes,

The only gentle sight

Was the cloud of the peach tree.

II

I have lived nine lives,

Like a kine

Eats the fruit from nine peach trees.

III

The peach tree smiled in the autumn sun.

Its leaves were spread to make a canopy.

IV

A cat and a goldfinch

Are right.

A cat and a goldfinch and a peach tree

Are right.

V

I never know which is sweeter,

The merit of paradigms

Or the merit of humbleness

The peach tree blooming

Or plain leaved.

VI

Frostiness coats the birdbath

Until the sun rises.

A flower from the peach tree

Gleams with hoar and rime.

For now,

Trapped in beauty.

Its discontinuity dawns.

VII

Oh, wild cats of Tucson,

Why do you ascend thorny trees?

Can you not keep safe the peach tree

That provides you shade

And the finches that eat fruit?

VIII

I dream stories untold

Of many indiscriminate options;

In those dreams, still,

Thoughts of the peach tree invade

To steal my dream.

IX

When the peach tree danced in the wind

It reached and was

One with the purple ranger.

X

The blooms of the peach trees

Dancing in a pink cloud

Inspires the gods of hiemal

Who stop winds brittle.

XI

She rode across Tucson

On a pink cloud.

Then, the finches joined her,

As she flew faster

The shadow of her legion

Sowed peach trees.

XII

The monsoon is coming.

The peach tree must be dancing.

XIII

It was summer and lightning

It was raining

And it was going to rain

The peach tree waved

In the thunder winds.