5 months of winter
I think these are thematically linked; they make more sense together than apart. So, nothing new, just putting it all together.
5 months of winter
The trick
is to find the square
root of a clock tick
and hide there.
(-Carol Shields, from "A Woman We Know Who
Suffers From Occasional Depression")
i. Contrition
Tungu
Siberians slaughtered horses. Needed to, so the horsespirit,
galloping to a ghostworld, could be followed.
In a shaking fit, a shaman can hitch a ride and bribe
an ancestor and secure peace. It’s not bizarre; it’s arctic.
Whine about drizzle or fog; many revel in your weather
and your limestone. Stay indoors with your tea and oranges.
Half crazy, imagine what our icecaps did to ole Leonard
and me, if you can. But then, empathy is not the British custom.
Here, among the snowy climbs and conifers, you need a guide,
even if it’s a dead horse. Your wits aren’t enough;
no man by himself can survive it. Horseblood, spirit,
shaman-
Restless, not believing in the dead, you watched the sacrifice
but ignored the help, used the blood to water a potted plant,
and slipped out for a smoke.
ii. Patience
Bus trip, Ottawa-Toronto
Having gleaned nothing from summer or fall,
the rotted fence and tree poke out of snowed fields;
when the arch wind skips past the evened farm,
she is the big winner. But what could a post
have learned from the gilded sights? Can a log
to be moved by a fine view, or can a dull poplar
tackle what was before it, and, aware, hold fast?
The beaten house can feel the active cursing
of a warped boot in its coatroom, bleeding mud
and water as they puddling melt, and feel the axe
dumbly brought indoors--a reminder of other heavy
tools-made-weapons, of back ache, heath, bird heads,
of pa's black summer tobacco, and the steeling
to survive Canadian cold. And outdoors the passive
stubs anchor the house and scolding, scalding snow.
When sweat fell before the leaves fell, the grains did,
and the fence forgot the stock's troll and pattern,
the sway, lit green, the thumbed leaf and hiding fort,
and later, the diesel fume and slow metallic graze.
Few remember the last September days, or care to--
the fence posts least, now wadded in snow, half broke
half protected, which winking feign some sense.
Tense is a circle; lance and lamb trade privileges,
but a year's field again in six months portends
grain--name a city that will fare the least better,
and I will trade this field for his clay and fired lot.
Strange alchemy to an urban tourist will return
orange and gold to the sullen patch, anticipated
by the twist of wind, the introverted farmers,
and the black loops of fence which make a dance.
iii. Grace
Unseasonal
We can’t foretell the kind year, and thank god,
because if mildness were certain, how could we afford
the real estate? Unseasonal - ha! Like our winters
were predictable and not a staggering, risky pregnancy.
So the snow races water out like a leaking orange,
and with as much a plan as an orange’d have.
A streaming game of What time is it, Mr Wolf,
and the shifting sunset waremoon answers
with its subway token eye: refreeze. This February
like a Pulitzer winner: astonishing, heartfelt, a feat.
How unfair to run the sidewalk like a sluice
and not to warn of stop or start. But then,
how dangerous to lend voice to snow or moon.
No metaphor lurks out there; the meteorologist’s
claptrap sounds desperate when the weather disobeys;
and a geography lesson pales to good advice.
iv. Obedience
Wool coat, Niagara
The wool coat holds muscles here,
taped, roped skin. Back knots
a flat span, some twenty eight inches
plus his shirt and coat. The hugged waist
hooks a jut out, a slack curve
and gathered fold, ribbed, a packed cossack.
A continent of ice dragged itself from the arctic,
scraping across the land, shoulderchecking the soil
in mounds south, past the forty-ninth parallel, shrinking
as it skulked over the border to waste into the Mississippi basin.
We see its slow tracks: the wide ditch and the Niagara escarpment.
Bitch hound wind sirens at veins,
bowls down urned trees, flings
light trash up King Street.
The shined hair pulled, the up-skirt
wind won't stop--but for this black
column, with suede glove and stiff case.
Junior high schools teach the land’s misery, how the migrating sheet
gutted the geography ten thousand years ago, wounded and wounding,
how it richened the soil for wineries in every place it carved up.
Every Canadian child learns how the ice age ended
as their body matures, as the girls turn Machiavellian.
v. Faith
Groundhog's Day
We invested in a rat.
Better it had been a bear
or a carved up fish,
but the pinched face
looks a friendly seal pup
poking from an academic den,
like a snowy professor.
We'd trust anyone whose astrology
is invariably a relief.
Do not think this day nuclear.
From the eye in England
wind will shake a tear,
but Canada's will stop breath
and change a man
from man to icy log--
but not in any month.
Whether thaw is February
or we're strung out till March
the groundhog's truth is
optimistic, warmth inevitable.
Blame me for being young--
I do. One winter will be my last,
but next season's outskirts
are in sight, and there green.
5 months of winter
The trick
is to find the square
root of a clock tick
and hide there.
(-Carol Shields, from "A Woman We Know Who
Suffers From Occasional Depression")
i. Contrition
Tungu
Siberians slaughtered horses. Needed to, so the horsespirit,
galloping to a ghostworld, could be followed.
In a shaking fit, a shaman can hitch a ride and bribe
an ancestor and secure peace. It’s not bizarre; it’s arctic.
Whine about drizzle or fog; many revel in your weather
and your limestone. Stay indoors with your tea and oranges.
Half crazy, imagine what our icecaps did to ole Leonard
and me, if you can. But then, empathy is not the British custom.
Here, among the snowy climbs and conifers, you need a guide,
even if it’s a dead horse. Your wits aren’t enough;
no man by himself can survive it. Horseblood, spirit,
shaman-
Restless, not believing in the dead, you watched the sacrifice
but ignored the help, used the blood to water a potted plant,
and slipped out for a smoke.
ii. Patience
Bus trip, Ottawa-Toronto
Having gleaned nothing from summer or fall,
the rotted fence and tree poke out of snowed fields;
when the arch wind skips past the evened farm,
she is the big winner. But what could a post
have learned from the gilded sights? Can a log
to be moved by a fine view, or can a dull poplar
tackle what was before it, and, aware, hold fast?
The beaten house can feel the active cursing
of a warped boot in its coatroom, bleeding mud
and water as they puddling melt, and feel the axe
dumbly brought indoors--a reminder of other heavy
tools-made-weapons, of back ache, heath, bird heads,
of pa's black summer tobacco, and the steeling
to survive Canadian cold. And outdoors the passive
stubs anchor the house and scolding, scalding snow.
When sweat fell before the leaves fell, the grains did,
and the fence forgot the stock's troll and pattern,
the sway, lit green, the thumbed leaf and hiding fort,
and later, the diesel fume and slow metallic graze.
Few remember the last September days, or care to--
the fence posts least, now wadded in snow, half broke
half protected, which winking feign some sense.
Tense is a circle; lance and lamb trade privileges,
but a year's field again in six months portends
grain--name a city that will fare the least better,
and I will trade this field for his clay and fired lot.
Strange alchemy to an urban tourist will return
orange and gold to the sullen patch, anticipated
by the twist of wind, the introverted farmers,
and the black loops of fence which make a dance.
iii. Grace
Unseasonal
We can’t foretell the kind year, and thank god,
because if mildness were certain, how could we afford
the real estate? Unseasonal - ha! Like our winters
were predictable and not a staggering, risky pregnancy.
So the snow races water out like a leaking orange,
and with as much a plan as an orange’d have.
A streaming game of What time is it, Mr Wolf,
and the shifting sunset waremoon answers
with its subway token eye: refreeze. This February
like a Pulitzer winner: astonishing, heartfelt, a feat.
How unfair to run the sidewalk like a sluice
and not to warn of stop or start. But then,
how dangerous to lend voice to snow or moon.
No metaphor lurks out there; the meteorologist’s
claptrap sounds desperate when the weather disobeys;
and a geography lesson pales to good advice.
iv. Obedience
Wool coat, Niagara
The wool coat holds muscles here,
taped, roped skin. Back knots
a flat span, some twenty eight inches
plus his shirt and coat. The hugged waist
hooks a jut out, a slack curve
and gathered fold, ribbed, a packed cossack.
A continent of ice dragged itself from the arctic,
scraping across the land, shoulderchecking the soil
in mounds south, past the forty-ninth parallel, shrinking
as it skulked over the border to waste into the Mississippi basin.
We see its slow tracks: the wide ditch and the Niagara escarpment.
Bitch hound wind sirens at veins,
bowls down urned trees, flings
light trash up King Street.
The shined hair pulled, the up-skirt
wind won't stop--but for this black
column, with suede glove and stiff case.
Junior high schools teach the land’s misery, how the migrating sheet
gutted the geography ten thousand years ago, wounded and wounding,
how it richened the soil for wineries in every place it carved up.
Every Canadian child learns how the ice age ended
as their body matures, as the girls turn Machiavellian.
v. Faith
Groundhog's Day
We invested in a rat.
Better it had been a bear
or a carved up fish,
but the pinched face
looks a friendly seal pup
poking from an academic den,
like a snowy professor.
We'd trust anyone whose astrology
is invariably a relief.
Do not think this day nuclear.
From the eye in England
wind will shake a tear,
but Canada's will stop breath
and change a man
from man to icy log--
but not in any month.
Whether thaw is February
or we're strung out till March
the groundhog's truth is
optimistic, warmth inevitable.
Blame me for being young--
I do. One winter will be my last,
but next season's outskirts
are in sight, and there green.