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The Pruned Tree
by Howard Moss

As a torn paper might seal up its side,
Or a streak of water stitch itself to silk
And disappear, my wound has been my healing,
And I am made more beautiful by losses.
See the flat water in the distance nodding
Approval, the light that fell in love with statues,
Seeing me alive, turn its motion toward me.
Shorn, I rejoice in what was taken from me.

What can the moonlight do with my new shape
But trace and retrace its miracle of order?
I stand, waiting for the strange reaction
Of insects who knew me in my larger self,
Unkempt, in a naturalness I did not love.
Even the dog's voice rings with a new echo,
And all the little leaves I shed are singing,
Singing to the moon of shapely newness.

Somewhere what I lost I hope is springing
To life again. The roofs, astonished by me,
Are taking new bearings in the night, the owl
Is crying for a further wisdom, the lilac
Putting forth its strongest scent to find me.
Butterflies, like sails in grooves, are winging
Out of the water to wash me, wash me.
Now, I am stirring like a seed in China.

From: Finding Them Lost by Howard Moss. Published by Scribner. Copyright 1965© The Literary Estate of Howard Moss.

Click here to hear James Merrill reading Alessio and the Zinnias .

Video clip: Alessio and the Zinnias
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Alessio and the Zinnias
by James Merrill

One summer - was he eight? -
They gave him a seed packet
Along with a 2' by 4'
Slice of the estate.

To grow, to grow, grim law
Without appeal!
He, after all, kept growing every day...
Now this redundant chore.

Up sprouted green enough
For the whole canton, had one known to thin it.
Michaelmas found him eye to eye
With a gang of ruffians

Not askable indoors,
Whose gaudy, rigid attitudes
("Like pine cones in drag")
There was scant question of endorsing

Then: Hold your head high in the stinking
Throngs of kind.
Joyously assimilate the Sun.
Never wear orange or pink.

From A Scattering of Salts by James Merrill. Published by A.A. Knopf. Copyright ©1995 the Literary Estate of James Merrill.