If on a winter’s night

Recent morning sunrise.

If on a winter’s night

you flex your hands 
like this 
                fist fern fist fern
circulation or fortune, a frozen spoon under 
your pillow
nearly silent 
like it was 
in the beginning

soft glow 
from the neighborhood bar
the sandwich board flattened 
by wind 
who can remember patience at a time like this 
laughter though 
strained by the craned necks 
to get a better look at country
its shape and everything after

despite being surrounded on most sides
we’ve come a long way 
from water the shapeless, lapping 
thing that shapes us
        saves us
                swallows us whole

---

Hello! I’m currently reading Sounds Wild and Broken by David George Haskell, a fascinating read about the evolution and origins of sound on Earth. This likely inspired the presence of sound and the longer view of time.

The title is inspired by our recent weather and a book by one of my favorite authors Italo Calvino, If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

The poem is engaged with the idea of community, gathering, country and boundaries — inspired by… recent events. Similar to this poem from back in March in conversation with New Orleans, it questions where forms (physical and dictated) stop and begin.

These lines from Christian Wiman’s translation of Osip Mandelstam’s “Maybe Madness” have been rattling around in my brain for the last few weeks:

Bring to mind the mindless spider, its care
For the pillared invisible, little crystal temple,
All air and otherness

With gratitude,