Snapshot Poems 2006
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Snapshot Poem 06 September 02006
What I Would Tell You I think of bison standing in snow motionless as statues, sleeping. Sand cranes in the wheat fields. In Pakistan, men debate whether a woman must have four witnesses to claim rape. Whether, her case unmade, she can be put to death for adultery. Here in the States we notice that… Continue reading
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Snapshot Poem 30 August 02006
It’s not yet September but the morning light pales winter-dim. Forests burn; our air thickenswith ashes and smoke. I’ve pulled the rugs, blankets, long-sleeved shirts and heavy sheets from the dark backs of closets. There is no poetry in me, only lethargy and pain. I resist, resist, this cooling season. Vines still bend with ripening… Continue reading
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Snapshot Poem 23 August 02006
You Say You Want to Know Me Look at the dead spruce, towering above all its leafed-out neighbors,a favorite perch for crows and ravens.Gray, naked, limbs all bent toward ground that no longer feeds it; branchesdrilled by flickers and woodpeckers; insect-rich; gymnasium for squirrelacrobatics; choir loft of sparrows;history written, hidden in its tall trunk; rough… Continue reading
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Snapshot Poem 16 August 02006
Poet on a Mountain Top from Classic Chinese Paintings I Send Out This Paper Boat August now, and three years —four? — since I’ve touched your arm, heard that river-bed voice. I grow old, my hair lengthens and thins at once, gray at the temples. My body declines in every sense. Our lives so far… Continue reading
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Snapshot Poem 09 August 02006
I Don’t Want to Outlive the Polar Bears She wakes in sheets sweat-damp, nightmare-stained. Flat white ceiling, ornamented walls, closed shutters. Once, in a dream, she saw another dimension, as real as these three. Sometimes, asleep or awake, she feels the earth slip beneath her like melting ice; she watches someone she loves drift away,… Continue reading
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