Darling,

Je fais ce que je peux.

Which is to say midwinter

and poems are as difficult as flowers.

Roots are secrets, my heart

mulch-heavy—a flowering shrub

under leaves and leaves,

rotting beech and oak.

I do what I can which is to say

there is little going on above ground.

—V.

De Materia Medica

(after Pedanius Dioscorides)

rhubarb bolted

Being an HERBAL

with materials medicinal and bucolic

with rhymes and colic

Written in English in the twenty-first century of this uncommon era

THE CONTENTS

The Oath

The Dedication

…

So blooms

Prelude

Flowers of Brass

Habitat

Origins of the Poem

So Blooms (the remedial florilegia)

So Blooms (a vial of viola tricolor)

’Struth

“Pick me”

“Pick me”

The Aromatics

Near Running Water, Streams, and Creeks

The Garden of Creatures of Land and Creatures of Sea

The Virtues and the Roots, the Juices and the Herbs

…

appendices

THE OATH

Not through vanity nor impulsiveness

With minimal omissions

Ignore not useful roots

Resist meager descriptions

Bear up—detractors

anoint their claws with words

Forecast the verbs

Weather the adjectives

THE DEDICATION

Lo Dearest Areius

Forgive the poets for being systemically unsystematic

The conflation of chaos and commonplace

Unheed the erroneous needling

Unfeed the needless controversies

Oil the lips with ointments and unguents

Resin the intentions with gums of trees

Take these recipes with prudence and acid

Volatile salts Anthelmintics Emollients

SO BLOOMS

bluebell

In which is assembled the many plants for whom I have tender affection.

Fertilized and abridged. Rendered and weeded.

Of the storing the gathering the proper harvest.

In which I attempt to elucidate varieties and uses.

Methods of preparation.

Ordeals and tests.

The potent and the useless.

Prelude

The history of botany is the history of pharmacy.

Plants for easing pain, plants for easing sleep.

Plants to ward off windy afflictions and poisonous beasts.

Plants for weakness of the stomach and eyes that weep.

Plants that scream when pulled from the ground.

Plants that purify the earth.

Plants aseptic and plants for the skeptic.

Plants of antiquity and plants impending.

Plants that balm the living and plants that preserve the dead.

[Book 5]

Earth that yields violet to brass.

Earth that smacks of ash.

Alkaline earth, bastard earth.

Earth that appeases the body and eases the mind.

Flowers of Brass [Book 5.88]

Part 1. Indissoluble Earth

This first poem about the last book is where the garden begins.

Sand and prolific dust.

Metals and earth.

Earth like small coals from a pitch tree.

Burnt red earth.

Big-veined bituminous earth.

*

Supreme earth has the disposition of medicine.

Earth that cools the pores.

Earth that closes cuts and heals sores.

Earths capable of absorbing acids.

Earths aluminous with spores.

The forgotten earths, the excavated.

The earths of bones and horns.

*

Animals and earth.

Vegetables and earth.

Geodes, whetstone, soot, and earth.

*

Pharmacy begins in plants.

Plants are the flesh of the Gods.