February 1
I think of ice
As shards of memory,
Reflecting an inner light
On yesterdays passed
Pleasantly on riverbanks,
Watching puzzled prisms
Coalesce into new memories,
Identical, diverse
As crystal.
**
In Winter
Why are magnolia leaves so especially green?
To simply guard themselves from winter,
To laugh sarcastically at ice?
That, as Rilke says, “rash profit
Just prior to impending loss.”
That might explain why those leaves
So very green, fade and shed
In the earliest summer, rattling
Into piles that I must rake in June.
While maple and pecans whisper
About the foolishness of resisting
The rules of growth and decay,
The propriety of knowing one’s place.
**
A Gladsome Noise
I used to listen to blues,
Until they ran over the disc
And stained my floor,
Tinctured my soul a bit too dark.
Now I focus on bluegrass
And let fiddle and banjo
Scour that floor
Clean as country water.
