July 7, 2006 (I was 61)
The rose I stole from the grave of Thoreau
nine years ago this week
still resides in Walden page ninety-seven
pressed against this fore-noted epitaph:
“Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?
“Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?”
Knowing the rose and inscription are there
brings me occasionally back to the volume
and back to the deed at the Concord gravesite
on the 180th commemoration of his birth.
Members of his official Society placed the flowers
which I later co-incidentally arrived to find.
Without a tribute to offer, I took one to preserve.
With the same rash purpose I opened a random page
that brought me to the quotation.
Thumbing I find assigned sophomore pages marked
in Economy and Civil Disobedience
I hang around with Brute Neighbors,
peruse the poems of smoke and mist
and search in vain for a voice
with which I might bring life to Inspiration.
To my nose
I hold the rose that reached back from his grave
and I fold it back into its page.
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