The Middlewesterner

That which
comes together

comes apart.
We are but

star dust.
We are but

petals
falling off

the flower.
We are but

withered grass
finding fire.

Piece of truck
tire on the

snow, or crow?

Fenceposts
up to their nipples
in snow.

The shove of ice
pressing shoreward.

The slice of water
at the edge of ice.

The emptiness between
ice and water.

My notion that
somehow this

is important.

Those who know may say
otherwise, but I think
“Lakota” is Sioux for
“Where angels reside.”

Thank you for shelter
from the storm.

“Want
is like talk -

empty
buckets, both.”

*

“You don't know
what you lack

so you ask
for more of

what you've got.”

*

“Rock means
what rock is.

Soil is more
deceitful.”

“Knowing that you cannot
trust them is better

than not knowing
you can trust them.”

*

“Making no sense
is my way of

making sense.”

*

“Traveling poet,
drinker of wind,

hard chaser of dreams
and dreaming things.”

Oh, for the wind
that shapes the snow

to shape me.

Snow. Water.
Land-shark waiting
to surface.

Snow melt pooled
like a wishing well,
and me

without a penny.

How is it
in the fog

there's the rough
edge of Antarctica

along the road?

It's not the cold
so much as

the dampness
in everything,

this winter.

“Why are
yesterday's

children
today's

fools?”

*

“Please excuse
my late arrival.

I was delayed
by a poem.”

*

“Why must
the silence

be filled?
Of what

are we
afraid?”

“Your insult
I wear like a badge.”

*

“Leave off
the search
for wisdom.

Stillness
is its own
message.”

*

“When did you
drive off the road?”
the officer asked.

“Between the second
and third stanzas,”
the old poet said.

Ice on the pond,
the air heavy
with winter, and

already crow
is lost to darkness.

Sorrowfully bright sky -
winter all the way.

Early morning darkness,
the wind cold and biting.

How the music calls me.

Somehow the sun
on corn stubble

has changed the day.

Frost on the windshield.
The sound of a door closing.
Some sun with our grey day.

We are all looking
for home, aren't we?

“Suddenly even
my left-handedness

seems strange.”

*

“Do you always
make such fun
of yourself?”
they asked.

“What do you mean,
always?”

*

“Those clothes -
is that all

you have to say?”

“Nothing.
Then again

nothing more.”

*

“Where are you going?
Are you gone?”

*

“Six times four
is plenty much.”

Black sheep, white sheep,
woolen caps

and jackets -
winter's coming.

Hang of sky
like the earth's

sadness packed
for winter.

Dirty light of
a winter sun,

and no other
way to get there.

Snow
on the mountains.

Light
in the wind.

Distance
in the distance

again.

Corn stalks
poke through snow.

A grey day
goes greyer.

If joy
came in buckets

mine would have
a hole.”

*

“I would shut up
if I could.

You think I do this
on purpose?”

*

“The more
I don't understand

the more
I have to write it down.”

“What? You let
a single period

stop a sentence?
Great thoughts

are larger than
punctuation.”

*

“Steal my car -
you steal nothing.

Take my notebook -
I might have to

hurt you.”

*

“You're only paying
for two of us.

Why would you
expect the whole

orchestra?”

No use. Oak is oak.
Am I the last to know?

This silence, my friend.

Sheltered from the rain.
This moment. This life.
Promise the sun brings.