January 2018
Poetry is a lonely business, but I have a friend who plays guitar, and when I play bass with him, I find community. My most recent book is In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013 and I've had recent poems in Hummingbird, Atticus Review, Hamilton Stone Review, and other literary magazines. I'm honored to serve as managing editor of the Lorine Niedecker Monograph Series, What Region? I blog as The Middlewesterner (www.middlewesterner.com), and have put up at least five little poems a week since mid-2008.
MY BIRDS
I would call them my birds if I were St. Francis,
which I am not. I feed them every day, or
every other -- finches, nuthatch, sparrows,
chickadee, downy, hairy, the occasional stray.
I buy sunflower seed in forty-pound bags
and suet by the boxful. Why do I do it,
if they are not my birds? They bring me light
and, in December, light is as good as love.
EVIL WRAPS ITSELF
Evil wraps itself in excuses.
We have all suffered, people say.
Love trumps hate, even when it doesn't
look that way. Forgiveness is
the offering at the table.
Nine dark birds have lifted up the sky.
WHAT THE UNIVERSE COMES TO
When the snow melts it is March
or maybe April. Towards
the end of May, some dreams
of green lines where corn will be.
By mid-July, the heat
like waves breaking in air.
Sometime in August you know
that September is coming
and when September comes
we must think about winter.
You talk about this turning
of seasons, but look close:
what this is about is what
the universe comes to: ice.
COMING TO MOUNTAINS
Sky is the sky
whether blue or grey,
whether cloud or mountain.
Here on these plains
all is up or down.
What's strange to us
is the sidewayness
of mountains. What's strange
to mountains is us.
SACRED TIME
That which
was is,
constant
as a
circle.
As all
place is
this place,
all time
is now.
Which means,
though you
can run,
you can-
not hide.
MY BIRDS
I would call them my birds if I were St. Francis,
which I am not. I feed them every day, or
every other -- finches, nuthatch, sparrows,
chickadee, downy, hairy, the occasional stray.
I buy sunflower seed in forty-pound bags
and suet by the boxful. Why do I do it,
if they are not my birds? They bring me light
and, in December, light is as good as love.
EVIL WRAPS ITSELF
Evil wraps itself in excuses.
We have all suffered, people say.
Love trumps hate, even when it doesn't
look that way. Forgiveness is
the offering at the table.
Nine dark birds have lifted up the sky.
WHAT THE UNIVERSE COMES TO
When the snow melts it is March
or maybe April. Towards
the end of May, some dreams
of green lines where corn will be.
By mid-July, the heat
like waves breaking in air.
Sometime in August you know
that September is coming
and when September comes
we must think about winter.
You talk about this turning
of seasons, but look close:
what this is about is what
the universe comes to: ice.
COMING TO MOUNTAINS
Sky is the sky
whether blue or grey,
whether cloud or mountain.
Here on these plains
all is up or down.
What's strange to us
is the sidewayness
of mountains. What's strange
to mountains is us.
SACRED TIME
That which
was is,
constant
as a
circle.
As all
place is
this place,
all time
is now.
Which means,
though you
can run,
you can-
not hide.
© 2018 Tom Montag
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