Deed

By Josephine Miles 1911–1985 Josephine Miles

As George Washington hacked at his cherry tree,

Joseph said to him

This is the tree that fed Mary

When she lingered by the way.

As George Washington polished his bright blade,

Joseph told him

This cherry tree

Bent down and nourished the mother and her babe.

As George Washington felled the cherry tree,

Voices of root and stem

Cried out to him

In heavenly accents, but he heard not what they had to say.

Rather, he was making

A clearing in the wilderness,

A subtle discrimination

Of church and state,

By which his little hatchet

Harvested a continental

Bumper crop for Mary

Of natural corn.

Josephine Miles, “Deed” from Collected Poems. Copyright � 1983 by Josephine Miles. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Illinois Press.

Source: Collected Poems 1930-83 (1983)

Biography

Lifelong California resident Josephine Miles distinguished herself as an educator, spending her entire academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was the first woman to be tenured in the English department. She is remembered as the editor of anthologies and critical texts, as an author of books on poetic style and language, and as an award-winning poet who produced over a dozen books of poems. Her . . .

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