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Snapshot Poem 03 October 2007

I remember how it will
happen. Leaves will fade
and brown, the sky will
grow wider. Snow will
thicken in the mountains.

The news will speak of war,
famine, extinctions. Coasts
will tremble beneath storms
called rare, unusual, brutal.

Widows and mothers will
grieve; fathers will fold flags
on the sideboard. Children
will not understand, but

they will rage. Skies bared
by fallen leaves will close
again with fog and falling
snow. Winter will come.

MP3 File

Snapshot 26 September 2007

The dogs bark
at intruders.
Which anyone is.

A goldfinch sings
on the other side
of the window.

I open the shutters,
close them. Is there
another side

to this wall?
I am uninhabited.
Come in.

 

Thank you, Andrew and Kasper, for help with revision.

snapshot poem 12 september 2007

this hand is unused to the pen
i am awkward, clumsy
i drop the glass -- i fall
down

this garden - neglected
fading -- drooping
this garden is still
beautiful

i leap from my dreams
i do not walk, i do not
pick up after
myself

i do not look
i do not breathe
i am clumsy, awkward
i drop myself

i fall down

   

Snapshot Poem 05 September 02007

The dog whimpers in her sleep.
She chases something I can't see.

There is a hole in the universe.
There is nothing there.

We are much more complex
than previously believed.

Smoke from the Dog Creek Fire
seals this valley grey.

How can there be nothing?
There is a hole in my life.

My dog chases it in her sleep.
She whimpers, her feet twitch.

Her chromosomes swirl into
something new, something

doglike, and precious.

   

snapshot poem 22 august 02007

 

clear august morning

floating on the pond

one white feather

 

         

 

Snapshot Poem 15 August 02007

Dave is losing patience with all this muddling about. I think he wants me to write. So here's a quick and not especially good snapshot poem -- but hey, I'm writing.

I'll have a better one for you tomorrow.

Today 500 more
dead in Iraq. Young
soldiers come back

from there, and kill
themselves. An earth-
quake in Peru. A friend

is torn, by love, by
rage. The Black Cat
Fire hunts neighbors

from their homes.
Today I will rewire
a lamp. The man

at the hardware store
gave me parts
and instructions.

I brought home
strawberries,
blueberries,

heavy cream.

Snapshot Poem

 

08 august 02007

neighbors come and go
in the smokey heat

this house is dark
and cool, cats complaining

of boredom and neglect
yowling up and down

the dusty staircase
why do we live each day?

through fire and flood
and darkening news

the absence of loves
everywhere, pain

women laugh
loudly, in the street

don't they know?

Snap

dna swirling in a test tube
a whisper of light
a ghost
a miniature galaxy

i am reminded
that i am a collection
a conglomeration of parts
an emergence

of creatures, moving
mysteriously in tandem
swirling into a body
a whisper

   

Snapshot 18 July

   

Even in dreams I am
insubstantial. Flimsy. Ghosting

through a history of rooms.
Tulips droop in glass pitchers.

Cats slip past the plastered walls.
Even in dreams my hips complain.

Stiff. Sullen. Uncooperative. Petals
fall onto hardwood floors. Linoleum

peels, curling up at the base
of the sink. An earthquake shakes

plates from the cupboard. Floating,
I drift to the basement. It's cool here,

tiled, mirrored. Echoing silence.

 

Snapshot Poem

I stepped from my house this morning,
head crowded with voices from dreams,
into shivering air, trembling air, symphonies
of waxwings and robins, a percussion
of crows ... Why do we enter the future
with the past in our night pockets? Trees
shook with squirrel passions; goldfish
drifted from the pond's dark bottom
up into pale water, reacquainting themselves
with the surface. The day passed slowly.
At dusk the mountains were scarved with mist.