The Middlewesterner

“Silly poet,”
he said. “You

want them to
call your play,

but you can't
run your route.”

*

“Yup,” said the poet,
“you always

talk about yourself
in the second

or third person.”


*

“Murmur
of words,

the drone,”
he said.

“I get
no sleep,

no rest
from buzz

and shriek
and cry.

I get
even

more from
silence.”

“Words,” he said, “they will
talk you to death

if you let them.”

*

“Most of the time,”
the poet said,

“it sounds like
turkeys talking.

But listen hard,
you'll hear

the poem.”

*

“You can't plan the poem,”
the poet said, “but you can

plan to be ready
when the poem comes.”

Marks in the bright snow,
someone sending peculiar code.

Slow
road, yet

nothing
to do

but go.

Snow,
banked
as if

we fear
shortage.

Nothing
this morning

but light,
brightness

like a fever.

A rising
light chases
fog. Again

I am
bound away.

There and
not there.

Sometimes
the wind.

The sun will
come up. It
always does.

Here we wait,
impatient.

Wisdom of a blue
morning - the wind

lifts; the day
turns, returns.

Clouds out over the
lake

sixty miles from
where

I sit in sun.

Last of night,
first of morning.

The stranger
diminishes us

with his going.

Smell of
coffee

brewing.
The cup

waits.

Cannot
undo the day,

Cannot fly -
trudge towards

darkness as
night

comes after.

Wild turkeys on a grey field -
“Seven, come eleven.”

Wind
and light

and all
that lifts

the day.

Bits of
decay

and hope.
Red tail

settles
in
the hawk

tree. How
does one

begin
again?

All the talk,
talk, talk -

nothing more
than wind in

the trees.

Light? No light?
My dimness

all the same.

Something to believe in?
The wind, the raw sky,

the promise of sun,
breaking through.

Whatever
the sky,

whether
the grey,

even
without

sun, a
new day.

Scraping sky
barely lit,

and wind
moving it.

“Show me your bubbies,”
he said.

“I'll show you my poem.”