名人诗歌|Eden

Yellow-oatmeal flowers of the windmill palms

like brains lashed^{1 to fans-}

even they think of cool paradise，

Not this sterile^{2 air-conditioned chill}

or the Arizona hell in which they sway becomingly.

Every time I return to Phoenix^{3 I see these palms}

as a child's height marks on a kitchen wall，

taller now than the yuccas they were planted with，

taller than the Texas sage^{4 trimmed}

to a perfect gray-green globe with pointillist

lavender blooms， taller than I，

who sTOPped growing years ago and commenced instead

my slow， almost imperceptible slouch

to my parents' old age：

Father's painful bend- really a bending of a bend-

to pick up the paper at the end of the sidewalk；

Mother， just released from Good Samaritan，

curled sideways on a sofa watching the soaps，

an unwanted tear inching down

at the plight^{5 of some hapless Hilary or Tiffany.}

How she'd rail against television as a waste of time！

Now， with one arthritis-mangled hand，

she aims the remote control at the set

and flicks^{6 it off in triumph， turning to me}

as I turn to the trees framed in the Arcadia door.

Her smile of affection melts into the back of my head，

a throb^{7 that presses me forward，}

hand pressed to glass. I feel the desert heat

and see the beautiful shudders^{8 of the palms in the yard}

and wonder why I despised this place so，

why I moved from city to temperate^{9 city， anywhere}

without palms and cactus^{10 trees.}

I found no paradise， as my parents know，

but neither did they， with their eager sprinklers

and scrawny desert plants pumped up to artificial splendor^11，

and their lives sighing away， exhaling^{12 slowly，}

the man and woman

who teach me now as they could not before

to prefer real hell to any imaginary paradise.