B412011
Parsley By Rita Dove
- The Cane Fields
There is a parrot imitating spring in the palace, its feathers parsley green.Out of the swamp the cane appears to haunt us, and we cut it down. El General searches for a word; he is all the world there is. Like a parrot imitating spring, we lie down screaming as rain punches through and we come up green. We cannot speak an R— out of the swamp, the cane appears and then the mountain we call in whispers Katalina.The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads.There is a parrot imitating spring.
El General has found his word: perejil.
Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth shining out of the swamp. The cane appears in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming.And we lie down. For every drop of blood there is a parrot imitating spring.Out of the swamp the cane appears.
- The Palace
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The word the general’s chosen is parsley.It is fall, when thoughts turn to love and death; the general thinks of his mother, how she died in the fall and he planted her walking cane at the grave and it flowered, each spring stolidly forming four-star blossoms. The general