Arctic Abstract

Whatnot, Moonface,

Of the winterworn?

Yuletide, she said,

Conjoined.

Dark Matter

Seventy-degree rise in a week

 

In this empty week

between the loneliest holidays

we are left to witness

a parade of the lost.

Such solitude

in the grip of the past

the dead more real

than the living.

Most of the universe

is dark matter. You can't see it

but scientists assure us it's there.

We don't need convincing.

By the 52nd Week

          

The cold and the year have worn us down.

In the pale sun let us gather our tired bones together.

Let us forget the ones who loved us,

and then did not, and said so.

Let us forget about those who left us

behind the velvet ropes and brass stanchions.

Let us not think of the unfaithful ones,

preoccupied with appearances and branding.

Those who smile when they're angry,

where did they take you?

The sun eases down behind Sugar Loaf,

setting now each day another click to the north.

It is good to know the earth a little,

to be part of the clear air,

to know birds by their silhouettes

and flight lines against the slate sky.

Let us forget with generosity

those who disappoint us,

even those who wish us ill.

What justifies not being?

What is better than watching the sun set

behind the five ridges in blue haze,

earthbound, touching the earth

with our beings, welcoming more?

—Merging the moment with Neruda's Sonata with Some Pine Trees

No Choice

from the public domain

Death on the porch

juncos and doves

sheltering from the cold

systems slowed to a stop

in the throat of the wind

roaring for days

through the sinews of trees

on the hills all around

like vengeance like Earth

shedding itself of humanity

leaving us no choice

but to cling to each other

for warmth for hope

if we dare

Ongoingness

The snowcrust hardened 

in the night

the sun rose late

The rabbit and the vole

the deer the fox

were here before

Another winter

in the life

to try once more

Off Season Ago

Swan Beach, NC. December 2015

Walking the tideline at night

alone by choice

in the labored breathing of the sea

content in the muscular dark

unseen unheard fearless then

as one year declined into the next

and old age seemed a continent away

Fragments in December

One winter closer to my last,

A tide of chill out of the north

On the back of my neck.

I'm thinking of you, too.

I know, I know. Too is pure ego.

Tires on the hard road behind the hill,

Jets in the sky, crows in the air,

You know the sounds.

Here, the road is mud,

And the mind pulses for engagement.

The old poets of ancient China

Went so far and high into the mountains,

Their regrets dissolved in mist.

I didn't do enough for some who loved me most

Before I lost them forever.

Higher, I must go higher.

The flash in the stone,

The pale belly of an owl in a storm of crows,

Everything is what it is, and something else, too.

The snow turns to rain and stops.

A Chant of Place

    

A day at the freeze line,

Light rain hanging like gel.

Surely there was more to do,

But where was the list?

Mars appeared in a gap of sky.

The moon rose and anodized the clouds.

I sat on the porch and watched it happen.

The cat climbed up my leg and onto my shoulder.

She had nowhere else to be.

Her purring, my heartbeat, Gregorian.

Under the Long NIghts Moon

Mid-December,

Assessing.

Dwell on the light as well as the dark,

I tell myself because I need to.

The adult is always lonely,

The poet wrote,

As if childhood were otherwise.

I feel a shadow on my back.

Advice

click for full size

No dressing it up

No spinning in pinafores

All sliders centered

Just the time and the quiet

And the space

Around

Words

Break my heart

With Winter on Our Doorstep

December, 2005

The day is bright and cold

The field beautifully empty

As we move over newly frozen ground

Our darkest weeks approaching,

The longer light we all want

A full hemisphere away,

Tilting further still from the sun.

Our shortest day is coming.

But the next will be a moment longer,

And then the next another moment longer,

And on an on for half a year,

With the warmth of summer to follow.

So, take heart, dear friend,

With winter on our doorstep,

I tell myself spring will win again,

And saying so makes it nearer.

Elders in my life did their best

To teach me how to wait.

I conjure them in darker hours.

I still can hear my grandmother,

Her warm reassurances in old age

Inflected still with the lilt

Of her mother's Irish accent:

Patience brings roses.

It's true it won't be long

Until the field is filled with snow.

But have we not seen

Lavender light on the drifts?

Meteorics

The wind dropped with the sun,

And we were glad upon the earth,

Wood stacked in the shed,

Water line shut off to the stable,

Vintage wool hung by the door,

Ready for the austerity of winter

With its special stars.

Late, cold, and clear,

Out with the dog in the overhead depth,

Frost on the ground like crushed glass,

An arrow streaked across Orion,

Bright and brief,

And lingered in the eye.

I thought of you.

Paris in Appalachia Sestina

Black and Gold Pittsburgh. Dustin McGrew photo (dustinmcgrewphoto.com)

     

Hello, this is Paris,

I used to teach in Johnstown, I'm from Turkeyfoot,

Everything we do is prettty much archaic.

The academic world is very egocentric.

Helen's is a restaurant in these mountains east of Pittsburgh.

This is an 1860s house.

There's a library in this house.

Helen of ancient Troy's lover was Paris.

The Paris of Appalachia is how some people see Pittsburgh,

The Turkeyfoot of Appalachia is Turkeyfoot.

To feel you are at the center of the world is egocentric,

To feel this is true is egocentric and archaic.

Swimming in an unpolluted creek might be archaic,

Especially if the creek is near your house.

A narcissist, like a poet, is egocentric.

Once I heard a woman say mon dieu on Pont Neuf in Paris.

Do women make poetry in Turkeyfoot?

They must make poetry in Pittsburgh.

Troy Hill sits on a plateau above the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh.

To have children is both archaic and not archaic.

Once I met a man off the grid in Turkeyfoot.

If the sun didn't shine, he couldn't watch TV in his house.

Maybe I should've called my daughter in NYC, the way Paris is Paris.

To think NY's the center of the universe is egocentric.

To think your daughter's cute and looked like you is egocentric.

The safest part of Appalachia might not be Pittsburgh.

You never think of dangerous places in Paris,

But there are some, though the ideas are archaic

As having a gallery in your house

In ancient Troy, not up-to-date Turkeyfoot.

Let's hightail it to Turkeyfoot

In the 21st Century full of egocentric

Copernicans, build a sun-filled house,

And pretend we're safe in Pittsburgh,

Where even video games have become archaic,

And we'll make better poetry than Paris in Paris.

I wonder if there's a Paris in Turkeyfoot.

Is it archaic to be egocentric,

Like a tackle in Pittsburgh, big as a house?

—Personalizing Bernadette Mayer's "Helen Parsons Sestina"

from The Paris Review, Fall 2012