Five Points, Vol. 4 No. 3
Spring/Summer 2000This is the excerpt lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper.
Sample Content
Maxine Kumin
The Greenhouse Effect
“Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd….”
—The Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins
The paper in this book was
produced from pure wood pulp without
the use of chlorine or any other
substance harmful to the environment.
I bore it to the indifferent cashier
who could not know that according
to Robert Bridges’ introduction
although touchy and arrogant, you
had great sweetness, nor how sweet
it is to replace my lost edition
loaned to a student forty years ago
with this paperback wearing your portrait
as a rosylipped boy on the cover.
Dear Gerard, how gentle, how British
the rest of the disclaimer, which ends:
thereby conserving fossil fuels and
contributing little to the greenhouse effect.
“Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together….”
In your lifetime and most of mine, greenhouse
suggested roses out of season,
fleshy gladiolas, even European
cucumbers trained to trellises:
in short, the kind of fervor
that made you burn those early poems for
the love of God, you would have said,
on becoming a Jesuit. For the love
of posterity Bridges saved
most of them, and for the love
of the environment, Wordsworth Editions
reprinted you “with ah! bright wings.”