alder

Planting the Alder

For the bark, dulled argent, roundly wrapped

And pigeon-collared.

For the splitter-splatter, guttering

Rain-flirt leaves.

For the sub and clot of the first green cones,

Smelted ermerald, chrlorophyll.

For the scut and scat of the cones in winter,

So rattle-skinned, so fossil-brittle.

For the alder-wood, flame-red when torn

Branch from branch

But mostly for the swinging locks

of yellow catkins,

Plant it, plant it,

Streel-head in the rain.

--Seamus Heaney