The Law of Falling Bodies: Poems

Exit Strategy

Exit Strategy Armadas of snow under full sail— The day finds itself Lost again in a white horizon, In the scud and spume of a new year. I’d like to go against the grain Of dirty salt and pull the wool blanket Over my eyes. But I live by the season’s decree, By the laws of North. If I were a painter, ancient and anonymous, Master of the School of Endless Winter, Maybe I could Soak my brushes in such frozen shades That even the January winds would Blow across the canvas With their sonorous monotonies, like a low Moaning in a withered lung. The only color I can see is A cedar limb with its stole of snow Where cardinals pick at the cold berries, Red on red on evergreen. The world’s come down to Drift and dune, squall and tides, The sun carried off By an undertow, the pale polar sky worn away. 39 • • • More than ever now I miss The ugly grace of dog-day cicadas, The stobs in a fall field, gone With the nappy grasses and broadleaf weeds. Though I wrapped the roses In winding-sheets and shook the mothballs From my cardigan, I left on every shelf The keepsake dust of summer. Is it too late to pray To Our Lady of Perpetual Complaint And place a taper in the bedroom window Like a pilot light for the moon? I wasn’t born to hear my own heart Knock like a steam pipe, or feel my mind Go numb as a halibut packed under The business end of ice. Let this blizzard have its say. I’ll turn The furnace high and wait it out. In the long argument against winter, Spring is always on my side. • • • 40 ...