GENUS POPULUS

   by Catherine Fraser

Can I sway like a Lombardy poplar?
every leaf and limb moving
in a choreography of grace
Can the planes of my body
ripple with the light in late afternoon?
Can my skin shimmer with the scent of the river current?

Can love do to me what wind does
to the poplar tree?
Moving in delight 
another beside me, almost me
breathing with one breath
dancing with one energy

Can I still bend so to the breeze?
reaching back and arching over
taking my bones in curves
flowing down full into the earth
again and again in rejoicing rows          

Has love ever done to me 
what the wind does 
to the poplar tree?
Have I ever felt so free?

This is rapture: this movement, this sound
This is transport: this concert of life and air
This soft percussion, cousin to riffles on hulls—  
What could this not make me do?

Is this why
I want to move with you
in the way of poplar branches           
in the river-scented breeze?       
I don't know why—
I am in the sway of trees