[Today, I woke slowly to the quiet blanketing of our first proper snowstorm. It’s that perfect type of snow. Accumulating. Blustery. Blinding. Limiting. Everything is whited out. You cannot see very far in the distance. You can be nowhere else but where you are, looking out with soft focus, unfocusing haze. The hibernatory cave of the bear. Of course, hibernation may not be the right word for our beloved bears, who may more accurately enter a state called torpor. Inertia. Stiff, Inactive. Dull. Lethargic. Sluggish. Not so noisy. Not so rustling. This is the feeling I endeavor to on this day.
The below missive is what I call a proto-missive, as the receipt of it was much alike the receipt of the past 31 missives. Which is to say, transcriptive, of a mid-night dictation, waking me from my own torporesque state. This poem was originally performed at “Love Stories”, a beautiful evening of poetry and short story on Valentine’s Day put on in Portland by my dear friend Kel. It later appeared in another beloved’s labor of love, Ruth’s Timshel, an anthology of grief and joy, Vol. I, under the title Hilaria. This shorter piece, a lovelabor my own, has re-appeared many times over the past three days, and officially was asked today to be shared with you all as a proper-missive. May your hearts too be empty, verdant, buoyant, and full in this strange and perilous ominous joyous new year~ ] Received 11/27/2017
Listen to the Recitation:
THEIR EYE, DRESSED IN DAISIES, IT FELL FROM THE SKY
Vanishing with the tide, a four leaf clover in the sand
Salty, but calling to me, yearning
To be free, a guest or breeze of tea leaves
Caught in a chain to a wall, mounted in
Bricks, stardust mortar black as dew
Drops as hammer strikes on an anvil
Moss-covered, penitent, supple to touch
I gasp, I claw at the arid temple mount
Plateaus spread with tablecloths and settings
For three, or four, small sized colonies of
Ants carefully whisking, fluffing eggs behind a
Counter, counting down the days to the end
Of time, stubborn, staying not, fleeting far from
Flung there to and appertaining some
Tears in a sunset fainting canvas, bleeding
Life into an abyss, my heart, a cavern
Once lush, now verdant, an empty hull
But buoyant, and radiant, and full.
