Watermark

Snapshot 29 December 02004 - Tsunami

Montage-a-google|tsunami  via Chasing Daisy

It's beyond comprehension. Each morning, the number grows: 22,000; 44,000, 58,000, 76,000 --

This entire city, its booksellers, its bureaucrats, its shopkeepers, gone.  Homes, grocery stores, apartment buildings, libraries, swept away.  Its grandmothers, gardeners, carpenters, and all of its children, dead.  Bodies in the broken streets.

It's beyond imagining.

this morning
a dead sparrow
on the frozen ground

Snapshot 22 December 02004For Árni Ibsen

Yesterday
was the
shortest
day. Snow
came. It
silenced
us all.

I try
to hear
invisible
strings
pulsing
beneath
the snow-

banks,
or tiny
particles
bouncing
off of
each other.
I am

listening
very
hard.
I am
waiting
for your
voice.

Snapshot 15 December 02004

Nights expand to hold
the waxing moon. Fog
in the mornings, and new
snow on the mountains.
Days shrink and cling

too close together. Already
the clothes need washing,
cupboards are empty,
the cats' bowls bare. Dust
accumulates in corners

like growing shadows.
Didn't I do all this just
yesterday? Or was it
the day before? I close
the shutters against a bright

snow-filled night, but wake
to bare ground. Or was that
the day before? Didn't I laugh
just yesterday? This braid
has grown to touch my waist.

Snapshot 08 December 02004

Winter is hazardous. The world around my house is a sheet of ice, scattered with thin, dry snow. Windows bloom with frost, birch branches bare on the other side. I stay indoors, still stiff and sore from a fall two days ago. The dogs beg for a walk; they will not have one. Yesterday, the river complained, groaning beneath its ice-spotted skin. Ducks huddled together on stones above the surface.

even the moon
a shard
of  ice

Thanksgiving [Snapshot]

 
 

These creatures, who companion me.
These friends, who sustain me.
These poets, who inspire me.
This house, which shelters me.
This garden, which feeds me.
This stone, which teaches me.
This changing moon, which comforts me.
This earth, which absolves me.
This ground, which will receive me.

These readers, you, who encourage me.

Snapshot 17 November 02004

This new moon night
the city is too bright
for all but a few stars.

On the river path, I find
a dead pigeon.  I leave it
for scavengers.  The next

morning there is nothing
but feathers and kernels
of corn.  Now the sky

hangs low and thick;
pinkish with the city's
reflection.  This wind

speaks, it tells me
there is snow
in the mountains

but the glaciers melt.
Across the street
a light burns in an empty

room.  I feel like this
sometimes, an old house
cut into apartments, rooms

filled with transient belongings,
and here and there
a vacancy, bare bulb lighting

an abandoned space.
I wake each morning
from old dreams of past

places, relocate myself
to here, now.  The air shifts
each day, another day.

Snapshot 03 November 02004For Árni Ibsen

I wake to a cold, grey morning
and election news I do not like.
You would not like it, either,
but you do not hear it. The ash

tree is filled with waxwings, red
berries scattered on the ground.
Here, winter approaches; there,
where you are, it is a different

season, in that mysterious land
of ice. I am four days older
than you, there on the white
bed. I have never seen your

face. You have never touched
my hand. Around this world,
candles of many languages
burn, to light your way.

Snapshot 20 October 02004

Autumn comes on a big wind.
Trees grow bare. Streets and
walkways rustle orange-yellow-
red. I pull out the winter parka

and brush dust from the boots.
Sparrows gorge at the feeder,
rounding out their feathered
bellies. Nuthatches stop by

on their way somewhere else.
There is that bitter winter taste
in every gust; rime on the grass
in the mornings. Crows surf

invisible waves; one folds
its wings tight to its body,
a black arrow speeding across
the visible waves of the river.

Already, one surge of grosbeaks
has come and gone, but the ash
tree still bows down with berries.
I wake to wind rattling windows; 

make a shopping list of soups,
stews and Halloween candy
for the monsters who will probably
not appear at my out-of-the-way

door. A friend grieves a broken
love and I grieve with her, all of us
broken somewhere, sometime, as autumn
gives way to the next, dark, season.

                        

Snapshot 06 October 02004

house cat
in the window --
chirping at the birds

      

Snapshot 29 September 02004

when the muse goes
what is left?
      -- only autumn

      

UPDATE:  Hmm, maybe I could make this a little love poem:

when you go
what is left?
      -- only autumn

      

What do you think?

Andrew suggests:

when he goes
what is left?
      -- only autumn

      

Patia offers:

when you go
what is left?
      -- only love

      

From Cindy:

when he goes
what is left?
      -- dirty dishes

      

From Roger:

when they go
what is left?
      -- tranquility

      

From Liz Kirby:

When Autum goes
what is left?
      -- Another season.

      

Cathy has done something a little different, using my poem as the first stanza of a new piece:

when the muse goes
what is left?
      -- only autumn

And from there-
you’ll let the worries
fall with the leaves.

      

Dave, following Cathy's lead, offers:

when the muse goes
what is left?
      -- only autumn
each morning the once-
free leaves of grass
made to rime
by frost.

      

From Patrick:

only autumn
as you go
comes winter

      

From Kalamity:

When the muse goes
with the crows
what is left?
-- only autumn
cool weather,
leaves and feathers

      

From mjones:

Look, the tree is red!
Look!
           My son is enraptured.
Autumn needs no muse.

      

Have we begun another collaborative poem dance?  Crows is my favorite post ever; let's do it again!  Use at least one line from a previous poem; leave your poem in the comments (or email me); and I will bring it up to add to the dance.