Global Warming
Full moon thaw
All night trickle of
run-off on gravel.
Piles of wet snow
dissolve into standing
pools in low-spots
on the field. Locked
in rogue programs
of a sad past
we put our heads down
plough into anyone
we come across.
Or wheedle and manipulate.
Islands of yellow grass
poke up through the
pocked snow. Each year
what seemed to be
permafrost softens.
*
Snowmelt: cold
hollows potholes in
salty asphalt
streaks of white on
grey black lanes
graded toward the
gravel shoulder
cracked seam down
center stitched
by faded gold broken
line.
Just as well you
don’t write I
guess. Less
friction on the
blister. The pond
melts first
at the inflow.
Pearl
Mantle covers
irritant with
layers of the same
nacre used to
create the shell
some foreign object
a grain of sand
like a seed or
splinter that provokes
the protective case
that becomes the
pearl.
Cowed, abject
with cell stripped
bare— no bed, 2
floor mats, a desk
3 books and a
chair—off the main
hall the door
left open to
display his
simplicity. And yet
after 50 years of
loss, 30 as a monk
with the refinement of
lasting grief: clamped
in the delicate
shell: solid
pearl.
