That Time Again

[rejectomorph]

Now that the rain has passed, the night has turned colder and neighbors have fires burning in fireplaces and wood stoves. Outdoors the smoke doesn't smell so bad, but when it gets into the house it reeks. This house leaks air as badly as its roof leaks water. Without the furnace being in here would be like being outdoors but without the advantage of breezes to clear the air. The breezes are nice, despite the chill, and I would stay outside if I didn't have to keep an eye on my aged charge. Drama would ensue were I not to be at hand when needed. Thus I feel closed off from the night even as its damaged scent seeps in. No landscapes here but in my thoughts. I find them too small.




Sunday Verse

If It All Went Up in Smoke

by George Oppen


that smoke
would remain

the forever
savage country poem's light borrowed

light of the landscape and one's footprints praise

from distance
in the close
crowd all

that is strange the sources

the wells the poem begins

neither in word
nor meaning but the small
selves haunting

us in the stones and is less

always than that help me I am
of that people the grass

blades touch

and touch in their small

distances the poem
begins