ON THE RURAL ROUTE

 

We arrived in the heat-thrum of summer

without warning, two young towheaded aliens from

the land of housing projects and junk yards

commandeered as playgrounds, spent the newly

lengthening days wandering, seeking out box turtles

and toads, garter snakes, plucking fat shining ticks

and the dark tongues of slugs from our sunburned arms

and legs, setting out on small, rickety boats, each

painted a different shade of ever-peeling blue,

puffy orange life vests smelling of must,

of those thick, watery seasons long since passed.

In the winter months, the school bus sometimes

could not get through, and the snowplows were slow

to find us, scraping their stubborn way up that

narrow curve of road to our small scattering

of cabins barely visible, the deep-frozen lake on one

side and the deep hibernating fields on the other,

furrows grown hard as gravestone beneath.

The small black-and-white TV was mostly snow

as well, only one local channel's signal strong enough

to reach our clothes-hanger antenna, giving us

the news we could easily see for ourselves.

The weighted sky hung low, the white earth rising

to meet it, growing closer from all directions,

while all else in the world became hopelessly far away,

our lessons for the day stretched out before us,

waiting to be written, before the early fall of dark.

NAMES

 

My daughter's name was discovered by

her mother in a crowded bookstore,

as though it had already been

spoken for years, her middle name

crooned over the car radio

en route to the hospital through

a fresh dusting of December snow.

Some of our ancestors had names that

were changed and changed again,

anglicized by those who claimed

to know best, while others were deemed

unworthy to be recorded at all.

My aunt gave names to her stillborn,

keeping their sacredness to herself,

while our mother taught my brother

and I that our names were known

to the angels, and could be removed

from the Book of Life if we lied or

took the Lord's name in vain.

I thought of this whenever I wrote

in my Big Chief notebook, or read from

my children's Bible, as I thought of

my earthly father, who too remained

faceless, refusing me the family name.

But today, the winter solstice just

behind us, I can hear the gentle swelling

of choral music from the next room --

something that could only be

expressed in Latin, voices so light and airy they can only rise -- as my daughter

calls out one request or another

that I can't quite make out.

But, of course, I answer; I answer

without hesitation, as if this too were

a kind of song I stumbled into,

and must somehow learn on the spot.

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

 

It was late in December, and you were

visiting from the coast, the thick snow falling

all around us as if in slow motion,

the tires of the car, so low to the ground,

rounding the corners in silence.

You were pointing out the streets and storefronts

you remembered, spoke of friends long since

moved away, turning down a side street

to point out the brownstone where you once lived,

its windows unusually small, its soft yellow light

seemingly from another time and place.

You put in that old cassette, fingers half frozen,

someone singing, as so many others have,

about home -- a little flat, a little off key, but familiar

enough that we remembered every word,

the way a kiss, or the touch of a hand can return

years later, as if they never had left.

How could I tell you in the stillness of that

moment -- you gazing dreamily into your past,

that this -- this very moment -- felt like home to me,

somewhere I longed to stay, if only for a while,

the breath of our words finding each other

without hurry, our jackets smelling of wet sky,

the frozen earth rising, imperceptibly,

to hold us there, before moving on again.

DISAPPOINTMENT AFTER A BRIEF WINTER STORM

 

We had anticipated far worse, as the prophets of winter skies had been promising -- or threatening -- for days, the word "crippling" suddenly commonplace in their weather-speak. We had expected to be stranded, shut in, with nowhere to go but further into a stack of new books, the warm engines of cats humming softly on our laps. But today we wake to crisp blue skies, walls of snow stacked neatly on either side of the street, cars already easing their way through with little resistance. Our responsibilities have found us again, our collective relief mingled with a strange sense of disappointment, not unlike what my mother must have felt when her Messiah failed to return yet again. We had longed to hunker down amongst the fresh winter silence, to claim the lengthening hours as our own, to bend our backs to help our neighbors before retreating to our newfound lives -- solitary, unhurried, underground.

SNOWBOUND

 

Everything has moved in closer this morning, everything weighted and wet, the gray sky slung low, curbs and corners all but erased by the endless dunes of white. Up and down the block, the drone and whir of snow blowers ring out, shovels scraping, lifting precariously, nearly breaking beneath the load. Their long handles dot the landscape like makeshift memorials. Shoulder to shoulder, strangers and neighbors push and rock the stubborn boats of automobiles free, at least momentarily. Beneath our woolen layers, the sweet-pungent sweat of winter rises and falls, small clouds of breath answering one weary sigh with another. We await the night plows flashing their small lights of salvation, await even the smallest avenue of passage. For today, no one is going anywhere. Though we are working diligently, patiently to get there.

FINNISH FUNERAL, AITKIN, MINNESOTA (1939)

 

It's impossible to know who is behind

the camera's noisy shutter, capturing these

mourners gathered beneath a haze

of summer sun, in somber black and gray,

gazing, without exception, at the dry ground.

Not so unusual, perhaps, for a people

known for their stoicism, for not making such

a fuss about this life, whose language has

many words to describe the existential weight

of snow and ice, but lacks any future tense.

The pallbearers stand on the back of the flatbed,

the hand-carved coffin between them,

men long accustomed to labor, not quite

prepared for this task, their faces shadowed

by grief, hands held close to their bodies,

as if already clutching at bits of earth.

My father is the baby here, knowing only

his own hunger, memorizing each face,

the sound of their voices, each particular touch,

while my mother, many miles away, has not

yet opened her blue eyes to this world.

My great-grandmother is about to move,

slowly, just outside of the picture frame,

becoming, seemingly overnight, part of what

we call history, that lengthening shadow

we each carry, yet never quite manage to catch,

that which shows no sign of stopping

for us, or even of slowing down.

WHY I LIVE IN A COLD CLIMATE

 

Because the sound of ice cracking beneath my feet reminds me of wooden ships creaking as they awaken for a journey. Because that journey can be long and arduous. Because frost collecting in the corners of darkened window glass becomes a kind of map, more reliable than starlight alone. Because I always liked you in a hat, and our bodies draw sudden sparks beneath the drab woolen blankets. Because our breath here can be seen as easily as any cloud passing, our silence sent skyward along with our prayers. Because in winter we walk easily upon water, never questioning the river's current or where we might have left the shore. Because you can follow the tracks of those who have trudged through the snow before you, making a path for others yet to come. Because sound travels far in the cold, and we have learned to listen. Because the Cardinals and house finches remind us to sing, in spite of it all. Because there are as many names and varieties of snow as there are for their Creator. Because whenever you drop a glove here, a stranger will inevitably call out, saving you yet again, and your saying thank you is really an offering of love you cannot quite admit to. But you feel the warmth of that fabric once again encircling your fingers, small but undeniable, feel the pinprick ache of blood's knowing return, and that may be enough for now.

BROTHER SONG

 

Brother, have you at last earned

the peace and solitude

which somehow eluded you

on this side of the earth?

Perhaps you speak now in ways

I cannot hope to understand:

the repeating parentheses

of gently falling snow,

insistent pulse of a birch tapping

against the window glass,

sudden shock of a crow wing torn

and frozen to the sidewalk.

You, who saved up your words

like trinkets for a rainy day,

offer no reply but this,

the space you have shaped

in your former image.

Or perhaps your silence has

become your song at last,

the one you had been secretly

rehearsing all along.

GHAZAL LOOKING EAST, THEN WEST

I come from a language that has no future tense,

where love itself is measured simply by standing still.

My mother's ancestors brought bad habits but good songs,

their hungry ghosts lingering around the whiskey still.

You told me once that loyalty was a defect of character.

My heart is a three-legged dog following you still.

Perhaps it's not love if something doesn't get broken.

When everything shatters, even the world becomes still.

My daughter spied a dolphin in the Mississippi last week.

A child's eye can do that, can hold a great river still.

We listen closely to the arguments of winter crows,

the air between each shriek all the more still.

My thoughts weren't all that interesting, so I let them go.

They wore themselves out, pretending to be still.

VALENTINE

 

The valentine I wrote for you just walked out the door, unfinished, with the unblinking haste of a lover scorned. God only knows where it's headed, or what it was thinking. It's snowing now -- thick, wet parentheses encompassing every breath, the wind throwing short, hard blasphemies at no one in particular. It's easy for something so small to get lost. Nevertheless, I hope it reaches you, fluttering and modest beyond reason, yet insistent enough that you bring it in -- out of kindness or curiosity -- from the unremitting cold.