poetry

 Poem 573 from PyroWords, 1996

Snow came late last night after winds all day: ice now is no
stranger, arranges neighbor, shadows, cypress in an
accolent coldness; partake, caress, infer from all to 1
I am the only water course through tomorrow.
Who would want to change time from now to summer
when the willow is woven, the light dark underneath, heat
hotter than your hand there, hot cider not cinnamon stirred,
only an incessant green pressing down, up at us, no white
to cool forehead or brown to knead shoulders, no silvery glint
of teeth open-mouthed off a low yellow sun? Which six
o’clock would you rather swim in, hands cupped high, legs
kicking steadily against the constant current? What sound
curls in your ear now, mimicking the storming ocean?
This is the muffling season, hard breaths gone suddenly silent,
wreaths curved in their splendid green atop the doorposts
silently whirling behind thick oak boards. Shh. It’s Christmas.

The cat at the bottom of the garden is a little cat.
She lies in the middle of the maple’s roots,
peering through the loamy, tendrilled dirt
to wonder at the worms wriggling up
towards the radishes. They seem to think
that it may be raining up top, they’ve heard
a drop or two bounce up and down a bit,
a pitter-pat upon the top, and so hypothesize.

 

The cat recalls a different tale: she remembers
rain pinging like stones on the window,
rocks you had to stare down with your widest eyes
or flinch and squint, or blink. The dog on the floor
below might laugh, if he was awake, or chase her
harder around the corners right before dinner,
pushing her farther for the fear she had felt.

 

Once one knew raindrops were not rocks, or birds,
one could settle easily onto the windowsill,
in one’s own bed of flattening belly fat and fur,
and look out into the yard, at horrendous weather.

 

Storms with roar and streaking light would make
the dog bark gibberish, melt his bladder into pee,
as he skittered across linoleum for an underneath,
any underneath, a solid mahogany well-protected
deep under beneath, a four-postered bed preferably,
somewhere he might spend a week or two in peace.

 

Instead, a knowing cat might sleep on demurely,
dreaming of all the old and simply vanquished
future weathers, sure in the warmth of knowledge
like a sunny spot emblazoned on the living room carpet
that nothing under heaven could be too much of a surprise,
even curled in the rose and radish roots,
given such lit emerald eyes.