January 2009
1
Snow fallen, another going
gone, new come in, open
the door:
each night I grow
young, my friends are well
again, my life is all
before me,
each morning
I close a door, another door.
2
Cloud on cloud, gray
on gray, snow fallen
on snow, tree on tree
on unleafed tree—
only a river silvered
with thin ice and a slash
of gold in the late gray sky.
3
Grayed snow slush trudge but
snow falling coating filling
in for absence Present!
child with stringed mittens
here to take her place
to take over on
snow showing up air
4
White sky, whiter sun brushing
trees with tints of red, then
in the distance streaking
mauve gold, filling in
between the now filagreed
trees, silhouettes against
the now red burning sky.
5
As if letting go, dangling down,
only down, through a cracked
pane, a clear pane, weeping
beech branches, roots
in air, only the crack slant-
ing up or (last night in sleep’s
play a long red slide) sloping down
6
down buildings walls houses
schools, no one building only
bombing, months of little in,
now nothing no one out, only
down: bodies arms legs in Gaza
where the eyeless man tore pillars
house himself the people down
7
On this day, this birthday, I wish
myself for the first time (who
would be a child again?) back
at that dining room table with
him, his years of little more less
back, not as in the note in her
birthday book, died 84 yrs of age
8
snow rain ice
stand walk fall
little more less
face flesh hand
will is was
oh yes no
melt rain snow
9
Off the page, sliding or
I brush or don’t see
you, but without
you, so cold, colder
than stooped-by-age
shoulder, oh flesh, hand,
Love, come turn my page.
10
Tempered by age, passion, rage
cool, no lost sleep—
while in sleep
they burn again, your fine hand
igniting my thigh, live birds
crushed under my feet,
then
morning grays again, aged
back, writing died... of age
11
As body to body fall-
ing together we burn
again, snow drifts
in air, turns, rolls
almost horizontal,
takes its own slow
time off from falling
12
Gun to body, shell to body, bombs
to bodies:
three, five, now nine
hundred bodies, over two hundred
children’s bodies,
over the border
to Gaza to close the already closed
border,
not to meet, border to border:
a border has no body, is only a side.
13
Epiphany missed, not the seen but the coming
to see, or star, the minister said, light sensed
against the dark, but not even the dark
night, or the cold bright, snow
roof over the roof below the darkness
before— only gray, industrial gunmetal
battleship slate gray, and the coming of gray
14
Friend Sleep has betrayed me I’m trapped
in a castle with villainess villain two
doors open a third slams down before
the darkness I’m trapped in a room my
friends accuse me I hide my sheets I cannot
tell them I’m dying and then awaking I’m
hurting (why these dreams?) my betraying self
15
In sleep a holocaust rations trapped
in a kitchen ovens coming why not eat
them if food is scarce—
In Gaza food
is scarce, power lost, the UN Compound,
a hospital hit today, now over 1000 dead—
But see, here, History: the Future: some
hope, though still rationed, is Coming Soon.
16
stuck zipper sticky egg
wiped off mouth mother’s
mouth lined around but
pursed now closer why
not eat touch again all
right merge again then
zip: put sleep to sleep
17
Today the train too fast
they said too soon they
said not yet they said
to Washington all
right now a black
man to the White
House on the train.
18
On his way to the Capitol largely built by slaves
who baked bricks, cut, laid stone—
on his way
to stand before the Mall where slaves were held
in pens and sold—
on his way to a White
House partly built by slaves, where another
resident, after his Proclamation, wrote:
If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
19
One hundred years later, King said
and said to the crowd on the Mall,
Now is the time and We can never
be satisfied as long as, he
dreamed: every valley
exalted, all these years until
not an end, they said, a beginning
20
O bless hold help keep
him safe, let him help
us through this cold,
let us help him help
us through this
cold, let its end be
O yes a beginning.
21
Cold is in the air, troops are finally out
of Gaza where 1300 dead are on or in
the ground where olive trees are up-
rooted, down, spoons a coloring
book limbs shoes in the rubble—
In the depths of winter, he said.
Today he is In, at work.
22
White roof over the roof, white
branches clinging to branches, even
the still fallen snow is moving, even
icicles shift toward dripping, nothing,
not even the cold bodies we are
becoming is not moving, not even
the ground is not moving, over, on
23
Beyond my windowed
wall, gray clouds move over
clouds,
beyond the Wall
that grays Gaza, dust
over dust of disturbed
bodies,
wall with drawn-
in windows, winter mirror
24
cold heart comfort shoulder
feet hands water drawn
in from left out
take stay sober stone
grave still body turn
on light open to
warm up front heart
25
fallen snow shifts
blows drifts from tree
to ground, leaves
the beautiful skeletal
limbs open to only
all over air wind
lifts then lets fall
26
He stumbled but still, she blundered
but still, they said what they shouldn’t
have said and recovered, of course
they are the great but even the small
(though all, we early learn, may fall)
may leave the mistaken, misspoken
behind as late we stumble into our selves.
27
maybe not long, you said,
cancer cancer cancer, c’s
crashing like waves—
waves of frozen foam
that day on that lake—
you who please don’t go I
can late we I can better Love I
28
mouth with you to mouth
with you to body with you
in body embodied, not yet un-
bodied Love I can better no
room so warm as with—
I think I thought I could I
can but not without you
29
In Vietnam: new year of the water buffalo,
steady, slow, welcomed with peach
blossoms, fruits, red wine—
In Gaza: year of the new
war, now ended but no room to bury
the dead, no place for the living
to buy food, water, any ...
30
for the woman who cooks
on a fire of sticks, her bag
of clothes on a tree
for those going home
to water their trees, lemon
and almond and olive
and for those trees
31
snow to rain to ice to melt to
freeze frame window grayed
in with old self same but
new has come can better
Love I—going home bless keep
clean gray slate not white or black for
even these few words, this small rain