Week Ten - Improv 2 - "Tree of Fire" and "Ulumbo, a Cat"

My poor attempts at short poems. I did two because one seemed like a cop out. I just don't get it...

Tree of Fire
-Adonis, translated from the Arabic by Samuel Hazo

The tree by the river
is weeping leaves.
It strews the shore
with tear after tear.
It reads to the river
its prophecy of fire.
I am that final
leaf that no one
sees.
My people
have died as fires
die--with a trace.
______

The juggler in the ring
is tossing balls.
He litters the ground
with drop after drop.
He feels the crowd
shutter him with embarrassment.
I am that final
Hackysack that teeters
on the fingertip. The crowd
rises as I’m caught.
I am
Blurred behind the
flurry of missed grasps.

Ulumbo, a Cat
-Rutger Kopland, translated from the Dutch by James Brockway
Like us he had his
quirks, but more
indifference.
In the winter he loved
stoves, in summer
little birds.
Sick and as indifferent
to death as to us.
dying he did himself.
___
Like us he danced on
his fears, but with more
sashaying arabesques.
In the locked box he
hugged proximity; with arachnids,
all eight legs cradled him.
Trembling and as tense
to laughter as to us.
Telling jokes he told himself.