Watermark

Winter Monday

A waft of garlic seeps
into this sunroom from
my neighbor's kitchen.
Chickadees and nuthatches
flit up and down

up and down from the limbs
of the lilac tree. Sun spots
dingy snow. The budgies
watch from their cage
without longing.

Snapshot 07 December 02005

The pond is frozen over, fountain bubbling beneath a crown of thick ice. A friend brings food and a red poinsettia. She tells me bluebirds have returned to the river. This garden is a dance of sparrows, chickadees, finches, juncos ~ and each day, a visit from the hawk.

I shop for long underwear and thick socks. The dogs shiver on their beds. This sky opens so wide, so blue at midday ~ but the days are narrowing down. Why now, in this quarter-moon, pre-solstice darkness, does my old body hum with forgotten desire?

a brush of cotton
my nipples
harden

Snapshot 23 November 02005

Night Fog

As the air becomes visible
all that we think of as real
blurs and fades, recedes
into greyness. There is only

this moment, one step
in any direction. Frost
delicate and cold on every
branch and leaf -- deathly

ornament. Morning brings
a thin and stingy snow
sifting the fog away. Three
crows fly past, calling their

rough greeting. A pale cat
slips between the iron bars
of the fence. I am surrounded
by dim mountains, like huge

sleeping beasts. Just over
that invisible horizon: December.
Winter dark. An earthworm
is frozen to stones on the path.

Snapshot 16 November 02005

Sometimes the sky
is a van Gogh sky. Once
I saw a dragon there.
Yesterday in Thailand
the people sent lanterns
up into the night sky
with all their sins
and sadness. What
is my share of the sins
of our leaders? Is there
a lantern for that? Tonight
the moon is full and the sky
is thick with snow; falling stars
for all the burning children.

The Day of the Dead 1 November 02005

This morning I woke to the smell of winter,
thinking of you searching for hope. Where
are you looking? In the bodies of women
who are strangers to you. In rice fields
and temples; in classrooms and markets;
in the dangerous sea. Though this valley
is bare, the mountains hide in a thin veil
of snow. If I set a place at my table for all
my dead, will they come? I am waiting
for hope. I know you are there, but you
are well out of sight.

Snapshot 26 October 02005

It is a day of grey skies
and orange trees, strange
birds passing through.
Is this my life?

Ten years of mountain
weather and the leather
cord broke and the bell
fell from the gate,

copper bell and blue glass
beads scattered on stone.
This pain, what is pain?
It is just this

October moment, this
warbler with its tail up
in the air, looking for seeds
in the fenced garden.

Snapshot 19 October 02005

I sleep beneath a shaved,
clouded moon. My dreams
are crowded & evasive. I try
to catch them but they pass
me by like geese, invisible
in morning fog. All the news
forecasts disaster. My book

is filled with blankness. I forget
to wind the clock. The geese
call again. Ducks reply across
the darkly misted river. Dry
leaves whisper down from
pale-limbed birch trees.
The houseplants wither.

Snapshot 12 October 02005

There is something about the way autumn
light enters this room through the yellow
leaves of the birch. Low and soft, it pads
through this house;

this house with its masks and its china,
its paintings of horses and skies. It touches
my face in the morning. I know it is not you
that I miss,

but loving you, wanting you. Spooned mornings
and naked afternoons, running like children
in the grownup house. The waiting for you
to come home.

Snapshot 05 October 02005

This anniversary of my brother's death
brings snow to the mountains, rain
to the valleys. Still half-sleeping,
I stand at the window and see golden
birds flying --

maple leaves. I am told it is possible
to write one's genome in one long
line of code, in a leather-bound book,
and a century from today some
scientist can lift

that book from the shelf and make
your twin. No bit of you need survive,
not one cell, not one eyelash, not one
drop of blood. Rhinoceros, platypus,
maple tree, you.

Snapshot 21 September 02005

bird cries lift me
from the shallow
surface of sleep

while i slept
flood walls broke
southern cities drowned

these northern hills
bleached tan
the maples turn

birches rustle
storms swirl
lifting the sea

south and north
autumn comes
north and south

the darkening