The Empty Loom: Poems

THERE WERE FLOWERS ALSO IN HELL

Are still wet and tempered With the last summer storms, Flames climbing the kindling, Our walls the color of late sun fallen On the shafts of the trees: a red kiln Glowing through heartwood. Even the fox I saw last night Was a long tray of embers Flung teeming across the lawn. 62 THERE WERE FLOWERS ALSO IN HELL i. Crossing the bridge, alone in the falling snow, I saw him below me clearing the pond for skaters. He was running the small skiff of his shovel aground In repeated strokes, upending its powdery cargoes, A ghostly quadrant floating in the whiteness Behind him where the light lay shelved as ice. ii. That first Lent after your passing, I spent hours Sweeping up petals: limp, frost-stricken flames Fallen in the aisles of the nursery where I worked. Lilies for Easter, and those early flats of pansies We’d take the row covers from in the mornings. The petals would smear on the concrete floor. 63 ...