Ever the Prince of Flowers, though foot-sore
from the trek over glaciers; though he bloodied
his shins on the ice-glazed bogs in mile
upon mile of benumbed slogging; though
the North Wind filled the sails of his linsey-

woolsey cape, then drove his body rolling like
a musket ball over the snowfields. And when (O
for wings! ) he was swilled down rapids, his skiff,
pod-thin for ease of portage, splitting in the force,
hatching all his stuffed and stitched-up waterfowl

upon the current full-fledged. Weak from unsalted
salmon whose mouths frothed with maggots, and stream-water
dimpling with larvae: finally he reaches
the Lapland valleys, where he drinks sweet milk
again, and can sit on a chair; and though the myriad

flowers unordered and unfamilied seem
a genealogic feat beyond his strength, he works
all day and under the midnight sun
with his spyglass and flower press, collecting
paragons for his herbarium, his sleeves,

though worn, still flaunting their linings of red shalloon.
It’s July; the height of the short summer; every day
teems with nuptials like a marriage palace; with
metamorphoses; with the never-before-named.
He resurrects a world of Nymphs, Danaids,

Muses, restoring them to their aerial kingdom
while their deep tongued kisses muss
the full-blown bridal beds. All is swoon for our
conservator of myth, who kneels before
a marshland blossom, and taking the down-turned

face in his hand, notes how she’s bound
to the tuft of leaves. And with a mind hovering
on associative wings, he unchains
the virgin from anonymity: and names
his own Andromeda.

Cardinal  

as if in prelude to a tart philippic, then
turned his jaunty profile toward the west
so that the retiring sun struck full against his beak

and flashed at me - a minute, gold-
electroplated semaphore. Such a satin surface
and nugget density it had;

the diminutive, fine-crafted jaws (those
of a jeweler’s pliers) when they opened,
soloed forth spring-song

with its ideal instrument: a silver mallet
pinged against the driving wedge, scoring
the tree buds stippling the dusk

behind him. And I, who feel
my throat swell closed at sunset’s
unmanageable fires looked up

to him, the small and self-important
maestro of eventide
who set his metronome to turn-flash and

tick out in precise degrees how brilliant
light diminishes. He counterpoints the night.

Karen Holmberg was raised in Connecticut on the Long Island Sound. She holds an MFA from the University of California-Irvine and a Masters Degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Southern California. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such magazines as The Paris Review, Slate and The Nation. She was a 1996 winner of the Discovery/The Nation Award, and her book, The Perseids, won the 2000 Vassar Miller Prize and is forthcoming from the University of Missouri Press in Spring of 2001.

 Karen

 Holmberg