Poems from the Dogwood Diarist

Snow-Bound

2010-12-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

Snow-Bound
A Winter Idyl

by John Greenleaf Whittier,
To the Memory of the Household It Describes.

THE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,
Brought in the wood from out the doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"
Well pleased (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, --
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea."
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemd where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! -- with hair as gray
As was my sire's that winter day,
How strange it seems with so much gone,
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, --
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.
We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o'er.
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet love will dream, and Faith will trust
(Since He who knows our need is just),
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mourful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
"The Chief of Gambia's golden shore."
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
The languorous sin-sick air, I heard:
"Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of bondage to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!"
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog's wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper's hut and Indian camp;
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François' hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away,
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flied the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways),
The story of her early days, --
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon's weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks' black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel's ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, --
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! --
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-butt and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence, mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,
Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
"Take, eat," he said, "and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham."

Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature's unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature's heart so near
That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne's loving view, --
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle's eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason's trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, --
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love's unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe'er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, --
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespuun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The virgin fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.

There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.
O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself coud give thee, -- rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one's blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household bosom lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our yougest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: --
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where'er I went
With dark eyes full of love's content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye,
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chnce can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in late life's late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the local school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth's college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation's reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater's keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,
Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame's winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brok,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom's young apostles be,
Who, following in War's bloody trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth,
Made murder pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery's lash the freeman's will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor's free
And unresentful revalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,
Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarded beside
Her unbent will's majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the test,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The vixen and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak of feint
The temper of Petruchio's Kate,
The raptures of Siena's saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath's surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta's rocky stair,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful. bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord's quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophecies!

Where'er her troubled path may be,
The Lord's sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Peversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skien of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul's debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull's-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle. broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over,
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love's contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

Next morn we wakened with the shout
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the stragglins train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball's compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty's call
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother's aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed
What mattered in the sufferer's sight
The Quaker matron's inward light,
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o'er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had),
Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the flourndering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread;
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
And daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica's everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks,
A Turk's head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that slope to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses,
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands' incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century's aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The wordling's eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends -- the few
Who yet remain -- shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Or lilies floating in some pond,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Winter Poem: Greta Crosby

2010-12-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

Winter
Greta Crosby

Let us not wish away the winter.
It is a season it itself,
Not simply the way to spring.

When trees rest, growing no leaves, gathering no light,
They let in sky and trace themselves delicately against dawns and sunsets.

The clarity and brilliance of the winter sky delight.
The loom of fog softens edges, lulls the eyes and ears of the quiet,
Awakens by risk the unquiet.
A low dark sky can snow, emblem of individuality, liberality, and aggregate power.
Snow invites to contemplation and to sport.

Winter is a table set with ice and starlight.

Winter dark tends to warm light: fire and candle;
Winter cold to hugs and huddles; winter want to gifts and sharing;
Winter danger to visions, plans, and common endeavoring --
And the zest of narrow escapes; winter tedium to merrymaking.

Let us therefore praise winter,
Rich in beauty, challenge, and pregnant negativities.

PAD Challenge; April 30 (Farewell)

2009-04-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

Farewell

I never knew you except as a personal
commitment, always got a good feeling
from you, but knew I would remain an
outsider anyway. And here I go: snip!
No more, you'll fade from memory, the
things I do never seem to stick. I am
spread too thin, and yet not doing enough
at all. Please be like that rare friend,
and keep me in your thoughts. When you
cherish me, I take up your cause; I love
that you have made a choice for me, and
given saving outlines to my slipping self.

PAD Challenge: April 29 (Revised)

2009-04-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

"Never More"

In the rings of trees and the hum of bees
and the curled petals of blossoms burned
think never never never again this little girl
toddling on this woodland path, a baby fist
full of sticks and stones and dandelion suns,
warbling her birdsong of cheerful queries.

Next year I may come across her stroller,
already an impediment in our walks, a rusted
thing in the gloom of the garage, cobwebs
knitting it to concrete, its mesh pocket
containing the forgotten finds of some walk
like this, and I'll have to leave it there.

PAD Challenge: April 29 (Never)

2009-04-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Never is an Earthbound Thought

In the rings of trees and the hum of bees
and the curled petals of blossoms burned
think never never never again this little
girl toddling on this woodland path a baby
fist of sticks and stones and dandelion suns,
warbling her birdsong of cheerful queries.

Next year I may come across this stroller,
already an impediment in our walks, a rusted
thing in the gloom of the garage, cobwebs
knitting it to concrete, its mesh pocket
containing the forgotten finds of this spring
walk and it may never see the sun again.

PAD Challenge: April 28 (Sestina Revised)

2009-04-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Snake, the Sparrow, and the Flower

I stand on the wraparound porch outside our house
and see a fat black snake winding his coil
around plants, a rake and then a purple flower.
A breeze in the trees, it slips through a stile.
And here I stand watching this still picture,
listening to the twitter of birds snipping the air.

Suddenly fatigued in the hot summer air
I turn back into the shelter of our house
curl up on the window seat and dream the picture
of that snake, its sleek shimmering coil
reflecting the sun as it slips behind the stile.
Outside in the shade of the large purple flower

a sparrow pecks at seeds and pollen from the flower;
the background sound of other birds has left the air.
This tiny busy bird, alone, so delicate in style
compared to the fat snake, uncommon visitor at our house,
who just recently uncurled the long length of his coil,
and slipped stealthily out of the garden picture.

There are omens worthy of a camera in this picture.
A sparrow alone, happily distracted under a flower
and a lately departed snake. I fear an unsprung coil
lurking behind fence posts in the hot summer air.
I hold my breath, crouched on the window seat in our house
and hardly dare to look in the direction of the stile.

Maybe the fat black snake has long departed the stile?
And maybe the awful confrontation that I picture
will not occur. From my window seat in the house
I wait. A breeze disturbs the upright purple flower.
And then, closing in, there is panic in the air;
the sparrow's head turns and the fat folded coil

in its forward stealth, rippling the grass, uncoils.
It's hard to tell how far from the stakes of the stile
the sparrow stands, but his flight into the air
is interrupted by fleet white fangs. I snap a picture
of the arc of the snake, sparrow and purple flower
while crouched on the window seat inside my house.

And in my house the kettle sings. They are gone, the coil
of snake and sparrow, but the purple flower by the stile
still stands erect, waving a picture of death in the air.

PAD Challenge: April 28

2009-04-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

This one was a handful. Brewer of Poetic Asides assigned us a sestina.

The Snake, the Sparrow, and the Flower

I stand on the wraparound porch outside our house
and see a fat black snake winding his coil
around plants, a rake and then a purple flower.
Wind in the trees, it slips through a stile.
And here I am watching this still picture,
listening to the twitter of birds snipping the air.

Oppressed by the steamy caress of summer air
I turn back into the shelter of the house
curl up on the window seat and dream the picture
of that snake, its sleek shimmering coil
reflecting the sun as it slips behind the stile.
Outside in the shade of the large purple flower

A sparrow pecks at seeds and pollen from the flower;
the background sound of other birds has left the air.
This tiny busy bird, alone, so delicate in style,
compared to the fat black snake who visited my house,
unwrapping the long length of his shining coil,
and slipping stealthily out of the garden picture.

There are omens worthy of a camera in this picture.
A sparrow alone, happily distracted under a flower
and a lately departed snake. I sense an unsprung coil
lurking behind white stakes in the hot summer air
I hold my breath, crouched on the window seat in my house
and hardly dare to stare through the stakes in the stile.

Maybe the fat black snake has long departed the stile?
And maybe the awful confrontation that I picture
will not occur. From my window seat in the house
I wait. A breeze disturbs the upright purple flower.
And then, closing in, there is panic in the air;
the sparrow's head jerks and the fat folded coil

in its forward stealth, rippling the grass, uncoils.
It's hard to tell how far from the high stile
the sparrow stands, but his flight into the air
is interrupted by fleet white fangs. I snap a picture
of the arc of the snake, sparrow and purple flower
while crouched on the window seat inside my house.

And in my house the kettle sings. Suddenly gone the coils
of snake and sparrow, but the purple flower by the stile
still stands erect, waving a picture of death in the air.

PAD Challenge: April 27 (Desire)

2009-04-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in the night I felt it --
a longing deep and bright and
dizzying and bottomless -- as if
to think it was to stop it, so I
couldn't name it. The closest I
came was ginger ale -- a craving
for spice and effervescence. But
that was wrong and drove the longing
far away because it wasn't wet or
cold or sweet -- but oh the yearning,
so incomplete the world without that
sense! It is gone for good now. It
doesn't come to me at night anymore.
I imagine it was a gift to the child
in me -- and may never come again.

PAD Challenge: April 26 (I'll Never Know)

2009-04-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

I'll Never Know

The beauty of misunderstandings
keeps me company,
comforts me
when what I feel is meant
I'm also told is so far
separate from intent:
"Don't take it personally!"
And so I don't.
With no words
to explain the gist
of what I heard,
there is no reason
to insist.
Except that somehow,
I am more alone
with silence on my side --
knowing that language did
not come first, and will not
come last, to guide us
in this soundless universe.

PAD Challenge: April 25

2009-04-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

A Wilted Birthday Gift

It's the day before my mother's birthday.
I am sick -- throat clawed with pain,
eyes hot and raw, skin like torn tissue.
I have not sent her so much as a card.
A phone call is too generous, and too hard,
the way I feel. So I go on line and order
a magnificent floral array. They don't
deliver Sunday, so I have them sent today.
I am troubled by this costly bouquet --
the big and bright and showy blooms seem
to hide my paltry effort in their shade.
Moreover, we're not rich, and homemade
gifts are more our stock in trade. But
today, in my robe, nursing my hurts, I'm
playing the delicate agoraphobe. Not unlike
the old days. Mom, across the globe, knows
none of this, and never liked self pity
anyway. So she calls with hearty cheer to say
these lovely flowers made her day; and I
was dear to send them. I get off the phone,
and some time later my sickness finally
breaks when my little boy slams into me
by mistake and I cannot stop crying. Maybe
what I really wanted was for her to be with
me, to understand the plain hostility
of my gift. Reckless, I fire off an
e-mail saying so, and she recoils: Why so
heavy? Did I really need to spoil the
luster of those flowers? My husband
finds it sadly funny: he doesn't like cut
flowers, and even less a waste of money.

PAD Challenge: April 24 (Journeyman)

2009-04-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

You can't resist this man.
He wears belted jeans
and a collared shirt.
His stomach is flat,
though not hard and
his jaw a little slack.
He's amused and easygoing,
not a fine-tuned sort,
a nervous pureblood.
Put him anywhere -- at
his home or yours, or
at some formal affair --
he won't have much to say,
unless you ask, but lots
to do. He'll carry his
habits with him to the
extent he may, and he
won't be troubled when
things don't go his way.
And everywhere he'll
lend a helping hand.
He's part of the land
wherever he goes --
teacher of a lost art,
this traveler at heart.

PAD Challenge: April 23 (The Impossible Past)

2009-04-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Impossible Past

Forlorn, she wanted her
daddy's long hair,
long hair worn years ago,
years before she was born.
All morning, she wept for
her daddy's long hair,
long hair he never kept,
but cut before she was born.
I softly wiped away
the tears that shone,
shone in her frantic eyes,
eyes that searched for
her daddy's hair,
hair that was long, long gone.

PAD Challenge: April 22 (Sacrifice)

2009-04-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sacrifice

"My my, she works so hard," they
used to say, as if it were a flaw.
She didn't understand quite what
they thought or saw in her that
brought remarks. But it seemed
important that she keep up the
facade. Work was work and not
its own reward. Rather, a sly
calculation, a ploy for adulation
and an ever-vigilant fear. She
grew up and said that education
must give children pleasure, for
in her case it had been little more
than a measure of the work she
was willing to do for love.

PAD Challenge: April 21 (Haiku)

2009-04-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

Ants split and scatter
the idle drift of hours
breaking open dreams.

PAD Challenge: April 20 (Rebirth)

2009-04-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

This is the haiku I actually submitted (changing the last line to get more assonance, and perhaps, make more sense):

Pink bloom peel back the
earth for the fluttering moon
to illuminate.

PAD Challenge: April 20 (Spring)

2009-04-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Pink bloom peel back the
earth for the fluttering moon
to brighten with tears.

PAD Challenge: April 19 (Anger)

2009-04-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Anger

I want to punish innocent thirst,
the thoughtless act of swallowing --
that glug-glug-glugging like a thug.
It is the sound of efficiency at
the expense of decency. It takes
me off guard when I'm just passing
through. He's stopped at the fridge,
and I'm walloped by the sound of a
gulp. I could happily crush that
bobbing apple on his throat to a
pulp. And quicker than I can pour
it he drinks it, a great wave of
satisfaction rising on his face,
his chest heaving like he's run
a race. Is it just me? Or does the
sound of swallowing make your ears
whir and pound? I know of no other
sound that can stir such a rage in me.

PAD Challenge: April 18 (The Beginning or the End)

2009-04-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

The Beginning or the End

Since when have you not liked to touch me?
I didn't say that. I said I didn't like
to be touched.
Yeah. And since when has that been? Since
before our baby was born?
She felt reckless, didn't want to hold
her awful secret any more.
Yes, probably.
He bowed his head and breathed deeply. Got
up from the bench at the end of the bed.
I don't know what to do, he said.
And then left the room.

PAD Challenge: April 17 (All I Want Is To Know)

2009-04-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

This poem is for my mother.

All I Want Is To Know

What you mean when you say it,
or what you say when you mean it.
One or the other to give me a clue --
some insight into the enigma that is you.
Why now this, but then that?
Why no words to bridge the gap?
But so many words to distract
from the meaning that flits
in the spaces between.
I want solidity in the voice
that trips over the wire,
that quavering, gentle tone,
ample, light and serene,
but as sickly senseless as
a scalpel on my temple,
a flip flop on my ribs.
No air but despair;
I'm careening:
please let me find a
handle on your words,
Guide me there where you are,
Don't let me fall.
But I'm going to fall,
and you will still be talking.

PAD Challenge: April 16 (Blue)

2009-04-17T18:08:00.001-07:00

Blue

I rush to get home for nap time.
Muttering at a traffic light, I glance
back at my boy strapped in his baby throne.
His head lolls a little on his neck.
Unseeing, he gazes through me, his eyes
round pools of light, the blue of dreams
reflected. He makes me think of wind
and water and sky and blueberries
growing high above the tree line,
shadow blooms in sunshine.

PAD Challenge: Day 15 (Heaven Is a Fine Fiction)

2009-04-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

"Heaven is a fine fiction"

Heaven is a fine fiction
for the hater and the hated
but for those who find
their peace on earth
it's surely overrated.

(Original title "'Faith' is a fine invention", by Emily Dickinson).

Denial

2009-04-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Whenever he spoke
of our lost love
I pictured it hiding
out somewhere, a place
he knew about but
refused to share.
We both agreed
to give it a chance;
to wait and see.
As I suspected,
this lost love
came back to me,
but he rejected it.
And when it hurried
back to him and
I asked to see
(according to our deal),
for the first time
I saw him as real.
He asked me to leave
and then left; I have
kept waiting since,
though not bereft.
This particular love
stays aloof, but others
I have found more
susceptible of proof.

And previous drafts:

Whenever he spoke
of our lost love
I pictured it hiding
out somewhere, somewhere
he knew about but
refused to share.
And I argued.
If our love was lost
then surely it
could be found
if only he'd agree
to look around
a little, with me.
He said he'd
wait and see.
As I suspected,
this lost love
appeared and was
rejected when it
showed itself to me.
That was when he
laughed and said
"Not likely!"
But when it showed
itself to him, and
I asked to see,
according to our deal,
That was the first
time he became real.
He asked me to go.
Our lost love has
stayed aloof, and
that is fine, for
others I have
found are more
susceptible of proof.

Denial

Whenever he spoke
of our lost love
I pictured it hiding
out somewhere, a place
he knew about but
refused to share.
We both agreed
to give it a chance;
to wait and see.
As I suspected,
this lost love
came back to me
and he rejected it.
But when it came
back to him, and
I asked to see,
(according to our deal)
for the first time
the love was really
lost and he was real:
He asked me to
skedaddle. And I did,
without a paddle.
This particular
love has since stayed
aloof, but others
I have found are more
susceptible of proof.

Fulvia

2009-04-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

I remember bringing home
A poem for my mother to read
She laughed and pronounced it
"Ciceronian" in tone.
By that I knew she meant
It was high-flown and grand,
a little too pretentious
for my young hand.

But I wanted my words
To bring her low
And leave her speechless,
Like Fulvia left Cicero
After yanking that scroll
Of a tongue right
Out of his rolling head
And spearing it with
A hairpin.

Routine Altruism

2009-04-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Routine used to be
a beggar at my door
I'd give him handouts
and send him on his way.
Then one day
after I'd threatened to
report him for stalking,
he came back to my door
and again began knocking.
He had an armload of
sheets that he spread
on the floor
blueprints he mumbled
and made me sit down.
His habit was poor, but
his mind was sound,
I learned he was an
architect and wouldn't
charge a dime
if only I'd spare him
a bit of my time.

Little Girl

2009-04-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

I see a girl on an escarpment path
bordered with wild flowers
skipping off with her swinging
pail to the song of idle hours.
Or kneeling down in gardens
under the shade of pears
explaining rock formations
to anyone who cares.
Or linking the fronds of
willows, endearing each tree
in the grassy open circle
with a name from A to Z.
I see her in the cozy dark
of her closet-cum-elevator,
she disappears with keys and purse
up the dream-dark shaft of years.
At the coffee table stacked
with books, she flips each cover open,
her little fist delivers a stamp
and a smile for every patron.
And I see her before the bathroom
mirror, holding a beach towel high
preparing to drape her pixie head
and flaunt her new long hair.

These were her games
and these were her haunts,
born of limpid dreams
and a heart at ease,
a simple love of order
and a wish to do her part.

Over and Under Thinking

2009-04-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the therapist's couch
can be like picking at a scab;
I want things to go better, but
I don't know how, and I
kind of make things worse
by trying too hard.
Or maybe not trying hard enough.
Mom always said, "Get off your fanny!
Nothing makes the heart grow sicker
than sitting still and looking in.
You need a thicker skin,
get out and be productive!"
To which I mumbled: "Denial."
Purpose without pleasure,
goodness without grace
and work without willingness,
make a poor life indeed. So there.
The idea though, I know,
is that redemption comes in the doing,
not in the contemplation thereof,
which is itself an invitation
to procrastination, which is
in turn, an opportunity
for desperation. So, with time,
I've found that keeping busy
helps in small ways, but the
the big picture still eludes me,
hangs over my head unseen,
like a heavy gold-gilt frame
about to come unhinged.

The Old Man of The Mountain

2009-04-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

In the old days, rowing north along
the Merrimack, you could see
a Great Stone Face,
the profile of a man
carved in blue granite:
The Old Man of the Mountain.
Here, it is said, the almighty made
men, hanging His sign out for
pioneers; they paid a steep
purchase price back then.
But the old man is fallen now,
his forehead, nose, and chin
a disgraced pile of debris
in Profile Lake. If you've got
a quarter, a coin-operated
viewfinder will reassemble him
in all his rugged glory, and you
may purchase your manhood that way.

Tatiana The Tiger

2009-04-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

It was after hours, in San Francisco zoo,
Tatiana killed a teen-aged boy.
His name was Carlos Souza. He was a
thin youth, with American Indian blood,
and long raven black hair. He had
stayed hidden in the restrooms
after closing. When all was quiet,
he ambled out with his paper boat of
cold cheese nachos and idly kicked a
fallen branch along the path ahead.

High on a hill, the tiger sat peacefully,
stretched out on her still-warm rock
in the dying light of the day.
Leaves rustled in the cooling air,
and the sun blotted the trees
like a Rorschach test over
her head. She blinked indifferently,
yawned, and tossed her striped head
around in an arc under the leaves.

Something in the power of her
lassitude provoked him. He
stared into her round pupils
that were like drops of black
blood, and felt his own blood surge.
He waved the branch and let out
a lusty whoop. But Tatiana only
stared at him, stretching her claws
a little, as if reluctantly awakened.
A small jerk in her loins and
she was up on all fours.

Carlos started cooing, cooing and
wheedling, "Here kitty, here kitty!"
as she swaggered toward him.
She lilted impatiently at the lip
of the gorge, and began to pace,
head surfing the idle breeze,
shoulder blades churning. Then Carlos
hurled his stick like a spear over
the iron rails. It ricocheted
against the side of the ravine and
flew upward into Tatiana's face.

Then she was 14 feet up in the
blue sky, a giant writhing cat,
pulsing herself outward two times
in mid air before alighting in the
middle of the walkway. Jaws open, she
sprung the rigid chords of Carlos'
neck and nestled down beside him
to lap at the stream of his blood,
and to tenderly wrap her paw around
a tangle of his long black hair.

The Problem With Dinner

2009-04-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

How do I loathe thee suppertime?
Let me count the calories:
the calories lost in the sweating and fretting
over your preparation,
the calories gained in the gorging and glutting
of my frustration.

There's Pete who won't eat meat.
And Trish who can't do fish.
And Ted who must shun bread
for diabetes sake.
Some of them like their vegetables cooked
But others like them raw,
Each fetish feeds my hunger
my ravenous, raging maw.

What I really want, though, is
a little of their fastidiousness.
I want a clean white plate
with a barley pearl, an emerald pea,
and a golden yolk for dipping.
Then, every night from here on in,
they'll sing their grace to me.

Cold Comfort

2009-04-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

Pineapple window squares dot
the inky darkness of Whitman Road.
Crisp filo sheets rustle and wilt
in the pulpy drizzle from a lampshade.
Giant bonbons rumble distantly in the dryer,
the walls are lacquered marshmallow,
pink raspberry pillows float in the steam
rising from a loaf of sofa.
There is a big brown tamarind door with
lemon fanlight, each segment blurred with
resin rain, and here and there a poppy seed.
The foyer floor, a mosaic of mixed nutshells,
floats the boat of her slipper cast adrift
like a dried apricot. Then into the great room spread
with watercress and roast chaise longue.
The wind is howling through this abandoned
cornucopia that was once her home.

Where I Come From

2009-04-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

Turned upside down
my answering smile
feels lip for lip
like Mama's frown.

And those words of praise
I see grip my daughter's
limbs? Escapees from
Dad's imprisoned gaze.

I wonder -- for worse or better --
What signs, in the
moments of my making,
Did they see joined together?

An Empty Account

2009-03-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

Sad, so long ago and buried,
but kicking still with presumptuous fury,
again mouthing the mutinous screed,
shaking sweat off the cold mist.

There is still light
hovering low and grey,
rain heavy and fretted,
hurrying itself away.

Here is the moment for who will see it,
Not me, not us,
too still to listen
too wide-eyed to cry.

In Parise of Sertraline

2009-01-30T18:03:00.000-08:00

(and Emily D.)

To keep her spirits hopeful
Takes my effort and her will
Takes her effort and my will,
And a little blue pill.

The little blue pill
In a pinch will do,
If her effort is lacking
and my will is, too.

The Soul Selects Her Own Society

2009-01-25T17:15:00.001-08:00

This portrait is of Emily Dickinson at Mount Holyoke, in 1846, when she was 16 years old. It is the only authenticated portrait of her later than childhood. The poem below is inspired by her poem, The Soul Selects Its Own Society.

The Soul Selects

The other night you called
To say, your Soul Selects
A Rinpoche,
Far -- so far away.

You know my soul prefers
The noisy blogosphere
Where portals never shut --
Where all are near and dear.

Strange that our nations
Have no faces,
But your gaze is always there:
Igniting my faint star.

Like stone, unmoved,
You shun the false heredity
Of flesh and bone
And Choose -- like me -- just One.

Curse of the New Year

2009-01-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

2009: on the TV a lady
in a gossamer gown
swirls three times round
over fields of green,
and lifts her luminous gaze
toward an arc of blue.

But my year starts
Slumped over a pot,
cthonic farts bubbling
like hot lava,
strained eyestems gazing and
waiting for the blow that
will cut the serpents loose.

My Basement Bed

2008-12-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

My Basement Bed

This bebouldered and bruised body
Strewn with chatter
and pumped with hurly laughs,
taut around the calves
and creaking at the ankles,
sways away to bed.

The lamp, the magazine --
a wire-rimmed spot of coziness,
and the smoky butter of a damp mattress,
its streak of odor
climbing to the rafters,
my nostrils swell to
breathe the sunlit dreams
beamed down like ashes into sleep.

The Dregs of Debauchery

2008-12-25T11:59:00.000-08:00

I awoke in a sweat from too much drink
and a bet the night before
that I could outeat my brother and spouse
as we varied from salt to sweet.

And tonight again I outate all,
bite for bite in steak and crab
and bread and butter, wine and pie --
Oh what a slab of flesh am I!

No tennis or hike for me today, the role
of hostess was mine to play. But the men
they had their untimed fill of
leisure, work and what you will.

I ate and felt mad and drank and
felt sad and was merry enough about it.
But still I query: What kind of task was
on my plate? My own or by others asked?

Word of the Day: Plangent

2008-12-20T12:02:00.000-08:00

plangent: 1) having a loud and reverberating sound; resonant. 2) having an expressive, especially plaintive quality. (Websters Third New International Dictionary)

The long, plangent ripple of the harp strings -- Osbert Sitwell
There is about the spoken word a poignancy, a plangency, directness and intimacy that is hard to match in print -- Irwin Edman

The plangent moan of pines
in the snowy dusk
rakes ice motes up
from my heart's crust.
In a chamber far away
The wind chimes weep.
But the ringing laughs within
and the firelight and engines
on the slick, dark drive
make all seem safe.

I am drawn to
the dark cloud gathering
in the fate of someone
among us, no one knows
But when the time comes
I'll know it was between
The two of us,
And I'll remember,
as behind a weathered
window pane,
The moments we shared.

Of Sandra

2008-12-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

In the November 17th issue of The New Yorker, Joan Acocella writes of the ballet Le Jardin des Lilas:

"This piece, with its careful titration of expressive gesture and, above all, its absorption of such gesture into classical dance—which thus operates as both release and confinement of emotion—is the most piercing psychological ballet ever made."

The meaning of the word, "titration," as I was told tonight by Ian Steines, emergency physician at Rockingham Memorial Hospital, is careful adjustment of amount or dosage until the desired effect is achieved. I don't know why it occurred to me to ask our doctor friend; it just struck me that Joan's term sounded like an artistic adaptation of a technical term. The word is one of those medical terms that has an easy, widely applicable definition for laypeople, so I like it.

"Careful titration of expression": that is a phrase that aptly captures the Tudor spirit; his choreographed movement is so awkward, measured and staid, until it finally gives way to the sublime.

Poem:

Of Sandra

Our conversations, measured and mild,
emerge slowly over the afternoon,
tentative titrations of our mood.

I feel the threat of collapse,
but not my friend, whose true blue
steel of virtue always sees me through.

Conner Pond

2008-12-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Conner Pond

Conner Pond is Summertime.
Filling buckets with blueberries under the hot sun,
Silhouette of Richard's switch against the mountain sky.

And running down the stony trail,
Berries like pebbles
Pattering in my pack,

I hear horses and Indians
Whooping in the woods:
Emily, Nat and Sam . . . .

My heart is often elsewhere and urban,
For instance, in the sunless basement
Of the Fahy's, coveting Tina's
Impeccable paper dolls.

But I love to deep-dive
Off my cousins' flat rock,
And to sit on their porch
Amidst gathering company,
A large towel wrapped around
My shivering body.

Aunt Anita has wonderful food,
Arrayed everywhere in small bowls
And on decorative trays;
Adult nibbles that the children aren't begrudged.

Then there's turkey tettrazine,
Corn and watermelon,
We send the seeds flying
Into the long grass below.

I hear the ice in
Tumblers like windchimes
And am comforted by the tumult
Of the adults' conversation.

As twilight thickens and
the breeze gets cool,
I gaze down at the lake water
Glinting through the pines
And whispering at the shore.

Mom's and Uncle Dick's voices
Start to overlap and amplify,
I want to take flight with them,
But they have a separate song.

Aunt Anita swishes softly,
Always outside the fray,
Dispensing as-needed directions
To we children heading bedward.

All lights are out now,
There is some pre-dawn
Twittering in the back rooms,
And I am certain that
Sleep will never come.

Bhopal 1984

2008-12-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

Bhopal 1984

Walking in the street,
She feels a monstrous animal
Press its hot, thick snout up
And into her trachea; it
Bulges against the muscles of her neck
And rends the skin in splatters
Over the wild face of her baby,

Salilla spastic
In her arms
Flailing in a foam
Of saliva and tears
Bumping down against her knee,
Splipping away in the careening
Slant of walls and buildings

Her eyes like her breath,
Will not catch or open
Her tongue, massive and slow,
Is swallowed by the animal
Rising and sucking her into
Its squelching flesh.

She gropes for Salilla
Not in her stiffening fingers.

Word of the Day: Moil

2008-12-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

Poem:

I picture a once-crisp letter
moiled with kisses:
it becomes damp
and crumpled,
runs with ink, and is
eventually ready to tear
if so much as picked up.

Lizzy must have been
a pretty picture
clasping to her bosom
the bold black cursive of
her rhapsodic Rob,
and burying it
in her wet face.

My love life, Lizzy,
is moiled with hormones
and bad blood --
I don't have any letters
from my Jeff,
just from my ex,
and I'd be lucky if I
Could find them in our attic.

Word of the Day: Amygdala

2008-12-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Poem: Amygdala

Amygdala, you are large --
a giant, playful woman.
You bend over and scoop
with a graceful paw,
then tumble down
on the back of your neck
like a polar bear
tussling with a beach ball.

Amygdala, you are dangerous --
like a toxic, bitter almond.
There is milk leaking
from the cracks in your skin
And you seem to have a shape
and mass that won't cohere
in my dreams.

Amygdala, you are a grey
sweat of cloud.
Jelly in my liver,
a glass sliver in my bone,
a dry powder on my tongue.
You are not beautiful,
Though you promised
You would be.

Word of the Day: Thutter

2008-11-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Poem:

We were driving after midnight in the mountains.
Jeff drew in his breath and said "Oh no --"
I thought it was something he saw,
But it was the engine that thuttered and died.
My questions likewise died in the uttering.
We sat in silence, stranded on the side of a dirt road.
Our seats grew cold.
Outside, the starless, leaking vault of night
began to crowd the car.

What would we have done without a cellphone?
The children, softly illuminated in the back seat
were starting to blink and whimper.
We'd have fallen upon a stranger's mercy,
and had a little adventure --
Maybe have gained a lifelong friend.

As it was my mother answered the phone.
Barely audible, measured exclamations
admitted of no surprise;
I thought I detected a tone
of accusation
in her meek replies.
"Typical" her voice seemed to say
Of this lonely warp in our world.

She arrived,
Her concern like another gust of cold air,
She didn't notice the children
or hear hear their fears
that our car had crashed.
We could try to get our luggage into her trunk,
but she made no promises it would fit.

I pressed my nose into the soft
dip between Norah's cheek and ear.
In that cold November night, I wanted
to be reconciled with the dead and all our grievances,
but instead we drove home trading notions of blame,
as if it were just another harried day,
more of the same in vacation time.

Word of the Day: Consuetude

2008-11-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

The Common Law Consuetude

Said Sir Walter:
Are you living together my bonnie lass and lad?
He said it and the rucus that ensued was not pretty.
And the kids were not ennobled by that, they knew.
But crocuses bloom in the strangest lights and locales,
we also know.
And god forbid Sir Walter's carping harpies
should belch their own consuetudes,
like so many drops of calcium wax,
on our frail hopes.

Word of the Day: Tulgey

2008-11-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

My Tulgey Poem:

Ah, ye, cry not for the task-bidden, tulgey sloth;
He frets, but he does not whiffle.
Nay, he creaks in time-told increments.
I do not want the flesh of parched rabbits
in my stew tonight.
I want a fluvium of crack --
Crack that sweeps the cornea and springs its tears from wells of wine.