After a Death


Anne strikes back at February
taking a hammer, whaling away at the ice 
that sucks tight to the house like some glittering coral 
of ravenous cold, reefing the house with winter

"Do you want to know what feels good?" she asks
after a loss, a contemporary loss,
that shocking preview of the sins of old age
"Pounding away with a hammer
at the ice," 
the ice, it may be, in your soul

In the morning, after a meager thaw,
the icicles are thick and unadorned
like drunks who have thrown up on themselves

The windows howl for their lovers 
the one who is missing does not return





The Valentine's Day Blizzard


The Valentine's Day Blizzard: 
massacre of a holiday
We huddled, 
like abused beasts of burden who had taken too many blows already,
trained to expect the worse
to stay off the roads
to toast our humble, time-warmed union
on leftovers, crackers, and the last of the wine,
make do, read week-old newspapers because the new ones 
were lost in the blizzard, buried by the latest two feet of snow 
watch reruns ("Twilight Zone"? No, save that for New Year's Eve)
and tune repeatedly to weather updates 
where Mr. Sadsack waits in the swirling gale for the ritual breach of the seawalls

and because we are stout of heart, defenders of the faith, 
and know ourselves among life's luckier few 
because the heart does not go hungry
regardless of taking a bye on the fancy restaurant meal,
bleaching the red from the roses, 
and hydrating on tap water along with our wine
we do these things 
we do all these things
we can do them forever, if needs be 
as do so many others, everybody really

because the Valentine's Day blizzard 
is no massacre of souls 
(though restaurateurs wring extra-virgin hands)
but a simple triumph
of tincture of spirits, human, side order of grit
and, besides, the power stayed on.





Anthropomorphic Weather
("... and there's a heavy air mass of self-pity heading toward Massachusetts...")

Let all the world converge upon the Pike 
Pacific winds and Arctic frost alike 
Making tracks across the whether map 
A trail of hail for some poor sap
To self-regarding, storm-tossed Massachusetts fault lines wind --
Going to Plum Island in my mind! 
Jet streams pour dominion on the meek
Our lows profound, our highs so weak
Gales shake their booties, all is lost 
Bad attitudes wring platitudes 
Here comes an unexpected cost! 

Seers and spakesmen rue the day
When a market low began the fray 
In the rest stops of rich latitudes
Rich men riddled in beatitudes
Selfish winds blew from the west
Cheap umbrellas failed the test 
Vain drops fell on well-clad asses  
Killing frosts frayed troubled masses
Tracking, tracking, night attacking
Chilling tongues where salt licks lay
A persistent low consumes the day
Icing down the travel lanes
And trampling down the wires where the hope of sun remains 
Canadian high may smile our way
What will tomorrow's omens say?





Moon Shadow


The secret shape of the tree displayed in the moon shadow 
Its skeleton, frozen fingers too cold to touch 
Its arms akimbo
Its fingers hold hands with the snow
Its voice the crushed ice of the screech owl
The moon shadow tells a black and white story
The cold, beautiful truth
You'll never get from your friend the sun

The days split oddly
the moon comes and goes 
never more here than the night you read its face in the snow

The fir tree builds a castle in the black, shivered air
The bare tree merely flaunts its gaunt and skeletal shape 
like a prophecy,
the picture of things to come
Things never so perfect as those glimpsed darkly 
through the windows of the moon





Four O'Clock, the Shadow Hour 


Winter's heart runs blue in the shadowed snow 
Only yesterday four o'clock meant sunset
Today the snow powders sunlight as if shaved 
from the walls that surround us, vessels in the heart of winter 
as the sieved crystals fly from the blades of the blower 

Shadows lengthen and dye themselves blue 
as if inked by the great paint pot in the sky
the snow blue that flows only now, in winter's heart, 
at the shadow hour 
when secret hands join across the earth 
to tug the sky downward 
and take the blue from the sky