Читать книгу Particles: New and Selected Poems - Dan Gerber - Страница 16

from A Year’s Turning

WINTER

Through the dark

which gives it light

for us

Polaris

the first we see

is not so far

fifty years

counting by how light will burst

with time, through space

Watching this star

pulls me from this place

my feet lose the ground / I

am nowhere / everywhere

I saw a bat

dusting the ceiling

I thought they slept in winter

and killed him with a tennis racket

Shock in my wrist

he spunked like a hollow ball

and faded on the floor

but I did not trust his death

An empty tree is filled with stars

and we, tired of dreams

seek new forms

A constellation without name

is waiting to become

and light

flickers from a distant farm

There will be no coming back

to fill with objects

this longing for unknown things

Night

waits to become

all we impose upon her

SPRING

Primary motion

A Cooper’s hawk

sails its patterns

circles and dips

hovers and rolls

Wings

form the intent

the hunt of eyes

larger than a man’s

followed and fought

against cold silence

And how did you

come to be ordinary

though you can’t

convince yourself

This field of wild mustard

a sky set in rain

a place for dreaming / a place

to graze your mind

But the gun is lowered

the mind won’t graze

Why here

in a field of wild mustard

and how did you come to be ordinary

though you won’t

convince yourself

All night the rain

driving us through sleep

washes tracks from the road

washes snow from the fields

and somewhere

beyond the rain

the moon

hangs thoughtlessly ornamental

in the sky

SUMMER

Pine trees

and the grasses in a pine forest

like sand vaporized

pulse out a dry smell

as you climb higher

and breathe harder

I stopped to rest

on a fallen tree

I thought of you

gone

and almost suffocated

In the moonlight mountains

darker as they are closer

are lighter

farther away

Clearly / I need

more light

to see

Often these clouds are beautiful

but I

can see storms in them

and sometimes the

sky has

more blue than I can believe

After the rain

interrupting our afternoon

/ the woods

floats off a thin smell

like a new day

You know you must tell her

and you are resolved;

you have composed the sentences carefully

and you’ve practiced them

but she’ll not help you

will not let you know

she knows

The thing about mountains

that from so far away

you can see where you’re going

Closer

everything changes / you

can see

only where you’ve been

FALL

Afternoon

a slanted light

as on a warm October

all you are

pursuing

something vague of apples

ready growth and still

green bracken a jay

and the first blue haze

juicy with sleep

weight of leaves

a sadness something

long awaited

Fire must have

an edge to cling to

a place

to spread its forces

a spot

to work away from

The duck

wilted in the boat

blood in the bilge

neck strangely twisted

the eye a puncture in flowers

Burn it

burn it all and start again

with less collusion

Each leaf bends into itself

tumbles down and back / spinning

down and back on itself

married to its falling

Again frost presses

its patterns

silver fossils on the window

I try seeing beyond

the night is nothing

a background

design of creatures

that never die