Almost Mid-March \ Now Rises April

Alan: Winter, like all of us, can be vain, even as it starts to show its age.

Almost Mid-March

Winter notices its fat thighs.

It thinks it’s a white beast

breathing down all our necks.

But it looks at itself now

and sees: cellulite.  Or at least

the snow sagging and dimpling

under this outrage of sun.

This breeze from afar.

Just days ago winter, sorcerer,

sorceress? – this ungendered maw,

taut belly of need, held us,

batted us around as it willed.

But today?  Today winter

looks at the calendar.

Almost mid-March.  Suddenly

it’s tired, tired of all its tricks

and tired of itself.  Time,

thinks winter, for a vacation.

Time to attend to those thighs.

Time enough to go

and come back ravenous

and roaring one more time.

Nancy: Waiting for a day of mild air, a day when I might take a deep breath and hum an old tune from my childhood.

Now Rises April

as from a winter sleep

     as from a dark constellation

April rises: birdsong, watersong

     green shoots, promise of flowers

saltmarsh perfume, call of shorebirds

     as from a dark sleep

I rise, surprised, take a step

     toward rising light

toward the promise of flowers

     an old woman

singing

fair, fair is the morning

Snow On The Windows \ Climbing March Hill #4

Nancy: When the windows are obliterated with whirling blowing snow, only the mind can escape.

Snow On The Windows

a landscape

a geology textbook

a campsite at Jumbo Rocks

a canyon, walking deep into history

a rolling meadow

a cave

icebergs

Mount Kailas, streaming cloud

I might say

    I am shut in

    yes, I am shut in

traveling

traveling

Alan: Snowstorm after snowstorm, six feet, nine feet, eleven feet... And yet even in this hard winter, early March hints at another season coming.

Climbing March Hill #4

You say, “Look at the sky!”

I see “bruised.”  I see “angry.”

“Livid.”  I see welts,

something stretched out wounded.

Your pain and mine, everyone’s.

Lifetimes of hurts.

I see a storm far to the south,

heavy thumb on the mid-Atlantic states.

Stranded commuters.  A jet

off the runway, almost

in the river.  People running.

I see long tongues of flame.

I see this through another window

than last time.  Another angle,

a little farther north.

I see a furnace banking itself behind spruces,

the sharp line of trees on the crest of the hill we live on.

A blindly biting mouth.

I see winter suddenly afraid of its own mortality.

I see a break in the storms, a chance for the snow to settle.

I see another cold night coming and a clear dawn,

the evening star setting west.

I see seeds waiting under the snow.

“Beautiful,” I say to you.  “Beautiful.”

Snow On The Windows \ Descent

Nancy: Blizzard, whirlwind, maelstrom of air, snow packed against, blocking, the windows – creating a world of memory and imagination.

Snow On The Windows

a landscape

a geology textbook

a campsite at Jumbo Rocks

a canyon, walking deep into history

a rolling meadow

a cave

icebergs

Mount Kailas, streaming cloud

I might say

    I am shut in

    yes, I am shut in

traveling

traveling

Alan: If I fly, it’s the landing that scares me.  If I climb, it’s the wondering how to get down.

Descent

It’s not the climb that’s so hard –

            even Jack knew that –

                       strength, agility, courage

all that’s needed.  Once there

           the adventure, despite dangers,

  doable.  No,

                      with or without the stolen

           or even offered boon,

                                         it’s the descent –

the stalk collapsing, the magic gone.

Shamans who beat their drums

              then threw their rope-ends into the air

    climbed

                       and vanished

knowing they might not return

                                        might fall down dead or mad.

Those waiting also knew,

                       making the wait a prayer.

My father told of climbing the knotted rope

              to the gym’s very rafters;

                                       then, thinking it smart,

                         he slid down neat and quick,

tearing the calluses off both hands.

              The coach mercurochromed the raw flesh.

     He almost hit the roof again.

A trivial example but worth recalling.

There were oracles of the state who, summoned,

             first went into trance.

                          Only then could they bear the headdress

            hoisted by several men

                                      that otherwise would snap their necks.

    Each time the fierce deity

                         entered them and spoke,

their lives shortened.  Yet it had to be done.

So, as we climb now

     with hands and feet, with our whole bodies

                                     disappearing toward what we cannot know

               may never reach or, reaching, find ungraspable

let us remember

                       when it comes time at last to descend

   to do so gently, slowly –

                                  bearing at least ourselves as proof –

 and with infinite care

               together.

Stolen \ Posting the DANGER Signs At Raven's Gulch

Alan:  When something’s taken from us, how do we react?  Maybe if we see the smaller thefts as a training...

Stolen

I came back to find the generator

          stolen

or rather to see

                           the blue tarp

                   blown against bushes

and the yellow cord

          with its heavy plug

dangling

                           from the outside wall

Easy to guess what happened.

Two men, young, strong, quick

                     could muscle it without trace

(except for the blotch

          of spilled diesel, candy

                             wrapper tossed carelessly aside)

across frozen ground, dead grass, gravel

          and lift it or slide it up planks

                             into their pickup

                      and be gone

They’ll sell it for scrap or pawn it

             for drugs or maybe to pay off Christmas

                               or even (I can hope) keep it

if they get it running

                     after years of no use.

We live in a world of stolen.  Long ago

              when this was just a summer place

                               uninsulated frame camp

                          cobbled from reject lumber

you arrived in the dark

             after the slow hard trip from Boston

                                to light the gas lamp

                                                 heard hissing

             jerked the match away

                                from the cut line in time

Hap McDaniel hired a crew once

             to clear alders at the edge of the next-door field

went home for lunch

             returned to find them driving away with his tools –

guys he was paying.  Hap’s long gone

                        but forty years on we remember

We remember too the story

             of the man who found his front door missing

was sure he knew who took it

                             went to get it back, was asked in, was talking

looked up, noticed a door-shaped bulge

              in the just-papered-over ceiling 

When a thief took every bit 

                               of Ryokan’s so-very-little

he grieved he could not offer him the moon

            shining through the hut’s open window.

For myself, I only wish 

                               along with the generator

I could give to these

            whose need can never be satisfied

a share of the happiness I feel now

            seeing it gone

Nancy: When the icy sea is yet warmer than the frigid air and the air icier than the frozen ground and your own breath is the loudest sound, this is a lonely planet and a cold star.

Posting The DANGER Signs At Raven’s Gulch

Zero degrees.

Wind cuts across the cobble beach

but the trail goes up, into trees.

Not much talking,

climbing; wondering what animal,

or was it the earth itself,

breathed out these white feathers beside the trail?

Height of land.  Now the trail

pitches down.

“STOP,” the signs say, “DANGER.”

This is what we came to do.

And in the cleft,

only the sea, smoking,

smoking.  No ravens.

Except for the hammer, driving nails,

no sound.

The sky,

receiving sea smoke,

makes clouds.

Note: The poem refers to degrees Fahrenheit.  0º Fahrenheit is roughly -18º Celsius.

Salt And Stone Poetry At 200

Two hundred weeks, that is.  When we started Salt And Stone Poetry on March 9, 2011, we gave no thought to its possible lifetime, only that we wanted to post our poems – old and new, one each every week – for as long as we had suitable material.  But having done so for the best part of four years, it’s time to make a change.

We will keep Salt And Stone Poetry going but from now on will post on an irregular rather than weekly basis.  If you want to see material as it is posted, please sign up to follow the blog by email.

Thank you for your interest.  We hope you will continue to read the blog and to share any poems that you particularly enjoy with others.

                                                         Alan Brooks & Nancy Nielsen

The Steps \ Wabi Sabi – The Green Door

Nancy: Yes, the walk to the well, the weight of the bucket, the climb back up the hill, have compensations difficult to describe but very real.

The Steps

Down the hill, at the well,

four steps have been carved into the icy white stone

of winter.  Four deep steps.

I take the buckets and go.

When I was a child, I was taken to

a famous building.  Later I felt foolish

when they asked me what I had liked best.

The steps.  The white marble cupped and worn

by the passing feet.  They laughed, and I never

mentioned it again, but I remembered the cool sound

in my mind, of stone wearing under the feet.

I think of those steps now, and of the deep wells

of the desert, where the steps are cut

into red or gold sandstone, and generations

of women have worn smooth patterns of descent and climb.

Four steps, the splash of the bucket, dip, lift.

Is it not more wonderful than monuments

that a child could see the feet of strangers in the stones,

and that I burnish, slowly, the heavy cover

and tile of the well?  Is it not beautiful,

to see the dark well water fill with sky?

Alan: There is a comfort, a sadness and mystery in something as simple as an old door nearing the end of its service.

Wabi Sabi – The Green Door

even more worn

more faded now

than in the photo –

flat December dawn

that yet proved luminous –

boards softer

more gapped, warped,

green almost gone

from the grain –

still opens out

into marvelous air

out from shadow

within

Restless Night, Cold Morning \ Three Nights Before Christmas

Nancy: The sound of calling birds – willets in the spring, geese in the fall – exerts a pull even on my sleeping brain.

Restless Night, Cold Morning

The geese hit the bay in a spray

of sound and water, rippling

the last shaft of rose madder light.

Then all subsides in dusk and murmur.

                       the geese circle the bay and land,

                       calling impatiently while I hurry

                       to gather my feathers, I almost forgot

                       but now I remember, hurry, call and fly

                       but wait, the geese lift up against the moon,

                       dark paper cutouts in the sky

                       even in sleep I hear, my blood answers,

                       but late, too late to fly

Days dawn so cold and clear now, listen,

you can hear the crackle of rim ice

when the wind catches an edge.

Down the bay, nothing murmurs, nothing stirs.

                       only dreaming the calling, the greeting,

                       the whirl and circle, the water, the sound,

                       the cries triumphant, one and another

                       and another and another

At dusk the bay is quiet, and again in the morning,

except for the wind, nothing stirs,

nothing calls to me across the water.  No reason,

and yet, for a moment I linger, listening.

Alan: Skeeter – 3 pounds of high-octane joy – ruled my life for all eight years of his.   I offer the following in his memory and in blushing homage to Clement Moore, Dr. Seuss, and Mad Magazine, which introduced me as a child to the perverse pleasures of parody.

Three Nights Before Christmas

'Twas three nights before Christmas, and up in my bed

I was sleeping the sleep of the not-yet-quite-dead,

Dreaming such dreams as I know are too common,

Of towns made of Swiss cheese and seas made of ramen,

Serial sagas both pointless and plotless,

Behaviors that dawn would reveal to be thoughtless,

Scenes by DiNiro, DeMille, Peter Jackson

(Silent, except for piano and claxon),

Teaming with characters straight out of Dickens

With bit parts galore (there was one for Slim Pickens),

Creatures who ranged from the pure to despicable

With motives transparent… obscure… inexplicable.

Let me tell you each detail (giant pink quinces!).

Oh.  Is that a yawn?  And are those tics winces?

Well, these were my dreams, so I found them engaging,

And slept, though outside a light drizzle was raging;

Slept in the bliss that tomorrow was Saturday

A sleep saints would envy, both former- and Latter-day.

Ah, joy!  No shrilling alarm in the darkness!

No jolt!  No "Where am I?  In Skegness?  In Harkness?"

And so, to sum up, I was napping the nap

Of a middle-aged, twenty-first-century chap.

Fretful and over-worked Monday through Friday,

But Saturday, ah Saturday!  It was my day!

When, what to my protesting ears should intrude

But the voice of the Skeeter.  So early!  So rude!

He whimpered.  He simpered.  He barked.  He insisted.

I covered my head with a pillow!  Resisted!

Downstairs in his crate he was growlin' and squeakin'.

I: clam.  He: the starfish.  I felt myself weaken;

Until, in despair, off the covers I threw

And peered at the clock.  It was five twenty-two!

The sky was pitch black!  It would still be for hours!

But who in the world can resist Skeeter's powers?

And so from the long winter's night I'm ejected.

I stagger downstairs, feeling beaten, dejected.

I light the gas lamps.  I put on the kettle.

I haul on my coat.  What a test of one's mettle!

I give good old Tycho a quick belly-rub.

Good boy!  You've been quiet.  Not so Beelzebub,

Who's watching, quite brisk, as I unlatch the gate;

Jeez, Skeeter, you devil!  Step forth from your crate.

So I leash them, and walk them, and build up the fire;

It dances and flickers: my dreams' funeral pyre.

I give them their biscuits.  Old Tycho's soon snoozing,

While Skeeter considers a toy of his choosing.

"Breakfast?  You're kidding!" he seems to be saying.

"It's time to be frapping!  It's time to be playing!"

So I toss him his ball, and I shake "Mr. Dino."

He fetches and tugs, while I feel like a wino

Who's just coming to from a capital binge

To stare at the visions that cause him to cringe:

A turtle, a ferret, and yet stranger creatures

That squeak when you press their abnormal, plush features,

'Til finally he flops on the cozy hearth rug,

Where he lolls and he sprawls, and he lounges, quite smug.

When at last the frail dawn creeps out, timid and gray,

The scenery's bleak, and it's sleeting.  Oy vey!

The driveway looks gelid, the yard bleached and slick,

And I think about Christmas, and poor old Saint Nick,

How he schleps all those toys.  What a schlump!  The schlemiel,

Why not just UPS them?  What's the big deal?

All that squeezing down chimneys (the soot can't be healthy),

An entrance like that, why it's hardly stealthy!

The cookies, the milk — oh, give me a break!

He must have a bladder the size of Salt Lake.

And out on the lawn, don't those reindeer get tangled?

"Yo! Rudolph!  Back off before Blitzen gets strangled!"

And that laying of finger aside his red nose -

Does he feel a sneeze coming?  It's here!  Thar she blows!

Ah, Nicholas, laddie, are you just a carrier

Spreading the flu?  Hoo boy, what could be merrier?

Then, labors done, whether dead drunk or sober,

You're gone from our thoughts until next mid-October.

But I glance at the pupsters — they're both deep in slumber —

And think, "C. familiaris sure has our number.

We're trained; we supply them treats, comfort and hugs.

I'll bet, way down deep, that they take us for mugs.

To amuse them, it seems, we consider full recompense

For all their bad breath and occasional flatulence."

So, feeling these sentiments slowly imbue me,

I exclaim: "HAPPY CHRISTMAS!  IT'S EARLY?  SO SUE ME!"

“Frapping,” from “frap,” frantic random activity period.