While Napping in Alaska on a Sunday in October [an old poem]

Winter crawls out of the woods
and swallows the town.  Shrews slip back
      to the woodpile.  The road
slides downhill.  Black and white tiles
embrace on the kitchen floor.
      Coffee thickens in the pot
while lunch congeals on the plate.
The planet turns through crowded space.
      Dust drifts under the door.

The dog dozes while the cat
dreams of eating it, one black paw
      at a time.  Darkness rubs
my bedroom window.  The quilt
exhales cedar and mothballs.
      In my afternoon dreams, I
ride a rolling ball through star-
cluttered skies.  Bears climb to their dens.
      My sheets pile up like snow.

 

Comments

[gautami tripathy]

Reading this, I wanted to go back to sleep. Snuggling into my quilt!

[Tumblewords]

You did a fine portrayal of winter and the desire to hibernate. Darkness rubs my bedroom window...a finely tuned phrase, vividly visual.

[Dale]

I love the line break at star- / cluttered. I've been trying to figure out why, without success, yet.

Really a wonderful poem.

[Dick]

Exceptional, Sharon. The personification within the accumulating metaphors provides an uncomfortable sense (in a good way) of encroachment, which is offset perfectly by the last four lines.

[niki]

This is probably not the right place to write this, but I am wondering what "Twitter Updates" are on the side link. Also wanted to say how much I LOVE your pond with goldfish pictures. They are so artistic, surreal, and cool!

[Tiel Aisha Ansari]

Very, very nice. Nice sense of stillness, even the eternal cat-and-dog combat reduced to dreaming. Also like the way black and white recur, suggesting colorless winter landscapes.

[pohanginapete]

It's a lovely, powerful poem, Sharon. Too much in it for me to comment on, but among other aspects, I love the juxtaposition of detail and immensity in lines 6 to 8.

You say it's an old poem. If you think it's worthwhile for you, I'd be interested to hear about some of the ways you think your poems have changed over time — not so much the subjects (if indeed they have changed noticeably), but how you present what you have to say. But please don't let this distract you from writing more poems :-)

[SB]

This is a deep question. I plan to answer in a post, but perhaps not soon as NaNoWriMo is consuming my creative energy this month.