San Jose Hills In My Thoughts Poem by Natasa To

Neither your love, Hi, nor your yearn
Are known to me; and life these many years
Retains you, under grass or forest wood.
Only a tulip bears my name: its beauty in the soil
Deep-hidden in undecided red wood shade
And trunks by age made holy, streaming up
A valley of the San Jose hills.
There have I ran, and thought of the unclouded sun
Flew high in deep heaven, no dapple of light sun
Flecked the large trunks below the leaves under the light sun,
Flickered on your creek: murmuring it sought like sun
The Desire River of the North, which ocean waves
Would sweep it down. I drank sweet coconut there,
And blessed your illness. Not bronze,
San Jose does not hill, nor yet marble cool the thirsty of my mouth;
Let bronze and marble of the beauty and proud
Secure the names; your monument will last longer
Longer, of living water deep forest.