Indiana Dunes State Park--winter 2018/2018

Wonder

Now it pays irregular visits  . . .
I lift my head and suddenly
the trees are mysteries
in the half-light.
The corner bush
(crushed against stained siding
and mangled into geometric form)
becomes unbearably tender,
its evergreen fingers holding
a down of snowflakes
unbroken, unmelted.
 . . . the dusk has eaten almost all color,
but not the red slash of cardinal
foraging under the dormant apple tree.

The Trees

The trees
under this substantive white space,
this back-light of sticky snow-crystal heaps,
are revealed.


Here are no straight lines.
Each trunk and twig embodies
its own slow, sinuous progression.
A flayed stub of dead tree
lays bare this whorling--
its wooden muscles graining
up and around,
like a twist of clay.


Above, scaled bellies of old oaks
and all top-twigs stand
in high relief under
a gray-white hood under
a gray-white sky.
And I, beneath, awed, enveloped,
breathe my tiny breath
so much more loudly
than the forest.

 

February Flowers

in short spaces

I have, in one corner of my backyard,
a mini-temple made of two pine trees,
scrawny and mauled by electric wires,
yet thick enough to keep off the snow
and sanctuary the ubiquitous sparrows
continually chatting (in fluffy vestments
smudged fawn and brown and gray)
the Sermon on the Mount.

Inside, warm and well-weighted
with worries--'twould be a pity
to refuse so short a pilgrimage,
small as the turning of the heart.

Winter Apples in the Sun

Healing

Cold season, and I am reminded
of the fine organ one's skin is.
Oblations of hand sanitizer, in this
land of perpetually runny noises,
fire every nerve across crimson skin,
flaming knuckles notched as if by thorns.
Edging irregular cracks, rusty flecks
hint at capillary highways
we generally take on faith.

And yet, come summer,
that lovely suppleness will return,
bending and straightening
according to the life within,
in perfect forgetfulness.

Winter Traveling

As youngsters, you and I
were archaeologists,
explorers, discoverers
of treasures in guise
of corn husks, shale,
an old piece of toy.
My brave big sister,
you have been
to Mexico, Nepal,
Uganda, even
dense places
of your own heart,
and you are still seeking
and finding and seeking.
I see you off,
this sleety afternoon,
with what I have
as precaution against
calamities of the storm:
empty coffee tin, matches
and the stub ends
of Advent candles.
If push comes to shove,
one flame makes
a lot of warmth
and light and melts
the snow to water.

Winter Gardening

It is still winter--sharp, dry
winter of the acidic wind,
coldest February yet.
Everything is breaking:
the furnace,
the doorbell,
focus, and
our delicate peace.
Veterans say this is normal
for the time of year.

Still . . .
stepping into the warm hallway,
small voices call my name;
small arms reach for hugs.

Perhaps we are all
like larkspur seeds,
enduring our freeze
to later flame our brilliant blues,
our double pinks,
our triangled spires of blossom.

Transit

As we await the train, Chicago wind

reminds us we are flesh and bone amid

much glass and metal, stone and brick. Thin skinned,

we huddle like some fuzzy chickens hid

beneath a few hospitable heat lamps.

The humming 'L'  arrives to slurp us up.

We watch the world—without: cars, fences, ramps;

within: assorted hats and coffee cups.

What prompts the woman's choice of red pom-pom,

the gentleman's neat brim, the young man's scarf

(long nearly to his shoes)? What chasing thrums

guitarist's fingers as we disembark?

Electric song finds roaring tunnel fit

for living, fly-wing bright and delicate.

Winter Cleaning

Now to heed the winter gifts:
the seed within the hooked bur shell,
the milkweed's thread of matted silk;
the barbed and needled keeping, or
the paper-smooth release.

The shearing of an ice-clear wind
demands our answer. What to hold?
What to loose?

Meditation on Gray

Above--
white-gray clouds,
then dull gray clouds crawling
behind the dotted Vs of geese.

Below--
shorn field's graying stubble,
then the pale gray grasses,
the bronze-gray stems
of goldenrod and aster.

Near--
blue-gray frills of lichen
skirting a fallen limb,
a female cardinal bobbing
toward the brush, her feathers
the red and gray wash
of old barn wood.

Far--the trees' deepest shadow:
gray lavender of branch
over branch over branch.
Through days of doubt, it seems
the Lord speaks in layer after layer
of soft gray whispers.

Perceptions

I walk, because I've been told exercise and sunlight help, but the sharp air seems to freeze my ears as I reach the park. In the pseudo-silence of urban winter, small noises cut through the tinnitus of a thousand cars siphoning like blood cells into the city a half hour away. My footsteps crack and crunch across snow that has melted then refrozen to blanket the ground like mounds of crushed glass.  Geese fly low, so close I hear the squeaking of their pinions. Are geese happy? I wonder. What must it be like to live only with the urges of instinct, to seek the simple things of life, directed only by wordless need and wordless fulfillment? What blessed stillness must fill them, at times--pulling tender grass under the sun, for instance--free from all self-critique and inner evaluation of motives and performance? As I pass, ice in the center of the pond cracks, invisibly, with a sound like two huge mittened hands clapping, and creaks at the edges like a screen door hinge. I trudge home, shattering moth-wing ledges of ice hemming the sidewalk. They sound brittle, like plastic made vulnerable by the cold.

Thinking of Jacob

Snow falls, flakes
large and soft
as winging moths
in street light fire.

They rain a pure
white whisper
resolved to fall
on silent fields,
stilled ponds,
tortured traffic and all
the brown dumpsters of
the wild woman city.

Cars go limping
through slush.
Our aching hips
remember--we are
the wicked
and the good,
the wrestlers under
some relentless grace.

Wondrous Absurdities

By the last red candle's light,
I ease the Christmas tree's
clutch of remembrance:
painted glass balls, holy family
and angel with her string of peppers;
adobe papoose, heavy as a paper weight;
and thin snowflake, fearful in fragility.
The white teddy has toppled, again
from its red rocker, and landed
among the sparrow eggs.
The spirit mouse soars on stubby wings,
pure bliss beaming from improbable features
as he hugs a broken violin.
Clothespin nativity goes in last,
and I leave the bead baby
in Mary's pipe cleaner embrace.
The manger looks too cold
for a whole year's wait.

Times like this, I miss
my mother's "flight to Egypt" figurine
and the red locust thorn reminder
that life and death and life go on.
Instead, I touch my tree with a spring
of paper butterflies and wonder
about God growing up,
about the boy and the man
and life spinning inside death's cocoon.

icicles

An Exceptionally Cold Morning

It is -15 degrees F outside this morning, but the wind chill brings the real excitement: -42 F!

The view from my window

2014

The snow falls through the city's bright midnight.
And now, seconds after the new year's birth,
a few rogue firecrackers play between rooftops
and naked branches. Dancing with snowflakes,
the sparks seem all the more magic--
this mingling of fire and ice glimpsed
through slats of a broken window shade.
A wish, a prayer behind my dirty window:
This year, Lord, let me learn to connect.

In preparation for guests,
my morning brings a grocery run.
Alas, the first store is (understandably) closed.
A fellow hopeful and I commiserate,
sloshing back to our cars.
"Happy New Year!" He smiles at me--
then, suddenly earnest, says,
"I'm glad to be here."
At the second store I find success and feel,
oddly, beneath the dripping awning, a pleasant thrill.
This could be a wonderful year.
It is all right to hope. Sometimes
hope, like love, must be allowed.

First Big Snow

The snow's like a big wind--
the kind of creature that floods a world
and doesn't care a fig how long it took
to do your hair this morning.
Everyone's a bit friendlier
in light of the common enemy.
The roads are dark gray gruel;
the sidewalks, intermittently scraped;
the traffic, wet, dirty, and loud
as a mongrel banned from the house
after a mud puddle run.

Only the park whispers a life
of silence--of tree arms stretched
to rest an inch of snow,
of smooth plains hinting of paths,
and lamp posts suggesting the way
to the pond and beyond it, the river--
this tribute to the wild,
this fringe of grass and woods,
this quiet place where snow belongs
to whisper and dance through songs
of brown leaves and wrinkled boles
and hooked burs benevolenced
by white.

Advent, First Sunday

Something . . .
The bright sky spanning
muted earth--all rusts and tans?
The ice-veiled pond,
each wrinkle hushed
in opaque contemplation?
The soft red cows,
so utterly animal? Perhaps even
the patter of our people talk--
the short sentence, spider-silk-fine
ties that bind together?
Something
whispers a cataclysm
of immanence and transcendence,
sky descending--a single
great blue wing--to blow
away like dust
or gather in, gather in
and tuck, tender, to
one immense and thundering heart.