What To Do About The Olive

lurching out

from the spilt wooden pot we thought

would contain it.

It leans     from shattered slats to garden

wall whose seams will swell and pop

with its slow     sure     spread

and look at it—in its full-burdened bloom

each chaotic branch heavy with black

pearls     as it sits     crooked in the garden

bathing pale leaves in Autumn sun

a feral beauty—it moves tattooed

through afternoon thermals

entertains the bouncing twenty-eights

           drops

the odd jewel into the long grass.

We must gather the children and their

buckets     de-jewel the ratbag of the garden

clatter tin with ancient globes

send them out in saline jars     tart

capsules     to be bitten and sucked     to join

roman wine in ruddy mouths     their

pips sent singing into spits of air     to land

in random spots and where the sun strikes

to wriggle in and crack.

This tree     exploding from its potting mix

like a slow-motion firecracker

has grown far beyond us.

What to do

but let it have its impulse     strike out for sky

and gift us     with little glossy gods.