March 2024
Author's Note: Here are a couple of poems called “March” for the theme of March. . . . I know, not very imaginative, but--
And, if I may, my new book has just come out: Slow Wreckage
And, if I may, my new book has just come out: Slow Wreckage
March
Walking in the woods, thinking about the coming war,
late snow sifting down, I startled some geese
in the nearby cornfields; they took off in squadrons, bugles
blaring; the whump, whump of their wingbeats, rotors
in the wind. I was thinking about Li Po’s “Grief in Early Spring,”
and I grew colder, knowing what lies ahead, all those sons
flying off with bright fanfares, returning home in silence.
Here, the Jordan Creek cuts through the marshes, rushing
over stones, over pieces of ice. And the snow keeps on falling,
softly, lightly—the coverlet a mother might settle on a cradle,
as she watches her newborn sleep to make sure he’s breathing,
his small chest still moving, up, and down.
from Small Rain (Virtual Arts Collective, 2014)
March
lines 1 and 2 are quotes by Garrison Keillor March, the month God designed to show those who don’t drink what a hangover is like. In my garden, the purple verb of crocus shoulder their way up, despite the layer of gravel thrown by the salt truck, despite the thick mat of dried leaves— This is the month that finds me talking to the dead, whose numbers increase like corms the older I grow. Here, in the bleakness of March, the grass is thatchy, patched burlap. Bare witchy trees. The body’s slow decline. The right and the left are at it again, jabber, jabber, jabber. But into this month of drab, here comes the crocus, sticking out its plum tongue, inciting the woods to riot.
from Small Rain (Virtual Arts Collective, 2014)
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