In April, in Princeton

They are moving the trees in Princeton.
Fullgrown and burlapped, aboard two-ton
trucks, great larches go up the main artery
-once the retreat route of Washington’s army-
to holes in the ground I know nothing of.
They are moving the trees for money and love.

They are changing the grass in Princeton
as well. They are bringing it in from sod farms
rolled tight as a church-wedding carpet, unrolled
on the lawn’s raw skin in place of the old
onion grass, acid moss, dandelions.
The eye rests, approving. Order obtains.

There is no cure for beauty so replete
it hurts in Princeton. In April, here’s such light
and such benevolence that winter
is overlooked, like bad table manners.
Peach, pear, and cherry bloom. The mockingbirds
seize the day, a bunch of happy drunkards

and mindful it will pass, I hurry each noon
to yoga in the Hillel Reading Room
where Yahweh and Krishna intersect in Princeton;
where, under my navel in lotus position
by sending fresh prana to the center
albeit lunchless, the soul may enter.

Here, let me not forget Antonin Artaud
who feared to squat, lest his immortal soul
fly out of his anus and disappear
from the madhouse in thin air.
Let me remember how I read these words
in my square white office, its windows barred

by sunlight through dust motes, my own asylum
for thoughts unsorted as to phylum.
Cerulean-blue rug softening the floor,
desk, chair, books, nothing more
except for souls aloft—Artaud’s, perhaps,
and mine—drifting like the waxy cups

of white magnolias that drop their porcelain
but do not shatter, in April, in Princeton.