Thursday Poem

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Image_alder_branch_02 Planting the Alder
Seamus Heaney

For the bark, dulled argent, roundly wrapped
And pigeon-collared.

For the splitter-splatter, guttering
Rain-flirt leaves.

For the sub and clot of the first green cones,
Smelted ermerald, chrlorophyll.

For the scut and scat of the cones in winter,
So rattle-skinned, so fossil-brittle.

For the alder-wood, flame-red when torn
Branch from branch

But mostly for the swinging locks
of yellow catkins,

Plant it, plant it,
Streel-head in the rain.

from District and Circle, published 2006

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