Paris Review/FS

I think the poem below is rather engaging: I like how
it seems to be very much stemming from Plath; and,
I definitely am glad to see a 14-liner with end-rhyme (the unrhymed sonnet,
for me, is no sonnet at-all with the exception of some of Gwendolyn
Brooks' off-rhymed pieces) and especially that there's enclosed as opposed
to alternating rhyme. 

Elms


Frederick Seidel



It sang without a sound: music that
The naive elm trees loved. They were alive.
Oh silky music no elm tree could survive.
The head low slither of a stalking cat,
Black panther darkness pouring to the kill,
Entered every elm—they drank it in.
Drank silence. Then the silence drank. Wet chin,
Hot, whiskered darkness. Every elm was ill.
What else is there to give but joy? Disease.
And trauma. Lightning, or as slow as lava.
Darkness drinking from a pool in Java,
Black panther drinking from a dream. The trees
Around the edge are elms. Below, above.
Man-eater drinking its reflection: love.