Falling Down the Stairs

Falling Down the Stairs

something must’ve snuck under my foot at the top

of the stairs and lifted it enough so there was no grip

and in an instant I was up in the air and sailing and

(after crashing  my elbow my spine on the lip

                                                of the riser)

I went straight along as though they weren’t stairs

at all but the slippery hill my children go down

go down go down hour upon hour until the snag

(their cold feet or wet mittens or a bare patch

                                                of gravel)

halts them suddenly and then they are quite done

in and they bring themselves dripping on the kitchen

floor so that snow is giving itself away

in the heat (we spend the next moments wiping

                                                noses, shivering

standing still) we believe, but check all the same,

that the speed we drip with or go down with has left us, if

hollow, still whole, a bit chafed, sure, from the wind and grit and all that

(and the one hard down on the ass slip and slide all pride yes

                                                that’s it my dears, all pride)

twine

twine

for it’s true, isn’t it,

in our world

that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns

are a single thing—

that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness,

would be without expression—

that love itself, without its pain, would be

no more than a shruggable comfort.

                                    Mary Oliver

                       “A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air”

enough rope to hang

            one or two loads

                        of laundry – one

                                    if I’ve washed all

                                                your sheets.  enough

breeze they’ll be out

            all day in it, kick slap lip

                        the grass when the pole

                                    slips off her yoke, prone

                                                on the floor of the world.

enough light at the end

            of the day to make

                        the bed with you

                                    still in it, propped on

                                                your hip, wheeze and whir enough

to rush the cupped

            closure of the fitted ends

                        and smooth out the new clean bed

                                    diaper you used

                                                to call it when you could

speak – would speak.  i like

            that the window faces the clothes-

                        line.  The morning is visible with

                                    work all strung out

                                                to dry.  I like, somehow,

now, that today you’re lying

            just out beyond it all, looking

                        back if you want, pleased

                                    at the lengths we go

                                                to make it

enough, one or two

            loads at time…

Clarity’s Impermanence

Clarity’s Impermanence  

That moment: you know it, when,

back in from the sleet and mud

under your boot soles, whose rubber

knuckles are choking so you

ride on the surface of the slush

that some plunge in the night has roughed

thick and solid, and that’s just

the deck.  What about the whole

path down to the truck, down

where it all waits to be cleaned,

patient as a Guernsey in her wet

perfume.  Or that moment

when, back in and breathing

the warm dry rise of radiator dust

you reach for something to clean

the streaks on  your glasses—bits

of tree bark (what?) and pricks

of bubbles that look like earl April

rain but really they’re just more

of February, they’re thumbing a ride

out of the cold that made them, they’re

a dimple on the lens. And you rub them

off passively.  And when the room,

whose desk lamp and old photos rush

at you like company arriving, you tuck

your hair in and tidy something

because you’ve seen it, you’ve seen,

finally out of the sleet and long freeze,

a purpose for it all, though like any

secret you can’t tell, you can’t,

and you’d die if you did. 

Valentine’s Day Blizzard

Valentine’s Day Blizzard

for Tommy

All afternoon it snowed, then

such power came down from the clouds

on a yellow thread,

as authoritative as God is supposed to be.

When it hit the tree, her body

opened forever.

            “Rain” by Mary Oliver

Love is five below

            zero – wool covers of gloves

                        of muffs above the mouth

                                    of a month of almost nothing

                                                but snow and the way it falls

                                                            on the hip high head high

                                                                        banks and rests as is, simply there,

                                                                                    falling bodies long in arriving.  Isn’t it

                                                                                                something, stepping out

into it

without wind, isn’t it

            something when it says what it is

                        what it is exactly, instead of opening

                                    that box in a box, when it’s all

                                                paper, all solemn at the bottom

                                                            as though the arrival of the season

                                                                        were a rumor, even though under

                                                                                    all this snow it has always been

                                                                                                there, not coming from the sky

                                                                                                            like we’d supposed, but from

                                                                                                                        the solid as silver ground

and yes we’d known all

along it was there, right? and our

            clearing and plowing was

                        the only way we could keep

                                    our edges, whose sharp corners,

                                                dull and blunt now with winter,

                                                            are buried in a throb of moist

                                                                        canals we once, from summer

                                                                                    (really spring, who do we fool)

                                                                                                into fall shouldered down

                                                                                                            without thinking, fresh

                                                                                                                        and stripped, and like all

Augusts,

hot.  But Fuck it’s still

            February.  We’re still in

                        the middle of it all,

                                    still shoveling this

                                                white shit up

                                                            against the bare sugar

                                                                        maple, naked as we want

                                                                                    to be, limbs spread to

                                                                                                a sky passing on without

                                                                                                            stopping or notice, except

                                                                                                                        that what it spills,  

windless or not

stays while it moves on

            as though the baby, needing

                                    rocking, isn’t hers. 

                                                The blizzard,

                                                            my dears, is on

                                                                        its way.  Bake

                                                                                    bread.  Pour

                                                                                                the wine.  Take it

                                                                                                            into your lips

                                                                                                                        while you still

                                                                                                                                    absolutely

                                                                                                                                                must.

Outside is

a long long way from hand

            to mouth.  Stay where five

                        below is on the other side

                                    of the glass, where wool

                                                dries near the fire, beads

                                                            of ice like sweat, like hips                       

                                                                        and limbs all shadow

                                                                                    all arrival, are falling

                                                                                                falling down, stepping

                                                                                                            (let it!) sweetly in

Shoveling snow at 4 a.m.

Shoveling snow at 4 a.m.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now the snow is grown, the different snows,

Too deep to clear them away!

                                                Li T’ai Po

Two weeks ago, out shoveling snow, I saw the moon

was over

my right shoulder

full and quiet.  And not a cloud not one cloud.  She is

half herself today

and at this point

in the day (not even

four a.m.) she’d/we’d be

nearly face to face—I’d like to,

bare handed, reach out into the wind chill

of minus thirteen

and caress what cheek

                                    at this distance

lays and lays against me.  Instead

it’s snow cold as Manitoba

cold as half way through

the race—

            she’s so much like milk

            like a mother undone

                        from the shoulder to the hip

                        leaning over the crib

            of the world to pick

            up the fisted baby and lift her, while

            under, the road out is covered

            with snow, and the howl of coming morning

            is a percussion and a trumpet

Snow.

Snow.

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground…

…

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

                                                                “Mowing”

                                                                Robert Frost

Maybe then a shovel whispers when it’s shifted

and jimmied beneath the pile of snow falling falling

and landing and staying put snow that’s above our heads

in banks and piles they grow they narrow the shoulders

of our roads snow snow this rubbed into life

white white strife in the clouds white in the charge icy

white drifting behind its sister to our view who receive it

in muted and gagged whispers—all that grass’s done

with.  UG!  December’s snow is buried beneath all this

and has nothing at all to say or nothing we or our

shovel can or cares to hear months now beneath there.

First falling last melting.  Ha!  Come May when our greed’ll need

green and push it into June we’ll let that grass grow

to our knees knees we’ll fall down on and lift our praising

heads and say Oh Oh look sweet Jesus look.

It’s time to mow.