Grayed In

January 2009

Snow fallen, another going

gone, new come in, open

the door:

each night I grow

young, my friends are well

again, my life is all

before me,

each morning

I close a door, another door.

Cloud on cloud, gray

on gray, snow fallen

on snow, tree on tree

on unleafed tree—

only a river silvered

with thin ice and a slash

of gold in the late gray sky.

Grayed snow slush trudge but

snow falling coating filling

in for absence Present!

child with stringed mittens

here to take her place

to take over on

snow showing up air

White sky, whiter sun brushing

trees with tints of red, then

in the distance streaking

mauve gold, filling in

between the now filagreed

trees, silhouettes against

the now red burning sky.

As if letting go, dangling down,

only down, through a cracked

pane, a clear pane, weeping

beech branches, roots

in air, only the crack slant-

ing up or (last night in sleep’s

play a long red slide) sloping down

down buildings walls houses

schools, no one building only

bombing, months of little in,

now nothing no one out, only

down: bodies arms legs in Gaza

where the eyeless man tore pillars

house himself the people down

On this day, this birthday, I wish

myself for the first time (who

would be a child again?) back

at that dining room table with

him, his years of little more less

back, not as in the note in her

birthday book, died 84 yrs of age

snow rain ice

stand walk fall

little more less

face flesh hand

will is was

oh yes no

melt rain snow

Off the page, sliding or

I brush or don’t see

you, but without

you, so cold, colder

than stooped-by-age

shoulder, oh flesh, hand,

Love, come turn my page.

Tempered by age, passion, rage

cool, no lost sleep—

while in sleep

they burn again, your fine hand

igniting my thigh, live birds

crushed under my feet,

then

morning grays again, aged

back, writing died... of age

As body to body fall-

ing together we burn

again, snow drifts

in air, turns, rolls

almost horizontal,

takes its own slow

time off from falling

Gun to body, shell to body, bombs

to bodies:

three, five, now nine

hundred bodies, over two hundred

children’s bodies,

over the border

to Gaza to close the already closed

border,

not to meet, border to border:

a border has no body, is only a side.

Epiphany missed, not the seen but the coming

to see, or star, the minister said, light sensed

against the dark, but not even the dark

night, or the cold bright, snow

roof over the roof below the darkness

before— only gray, industrial gunmetal

battleship slate gray, and the coming of gray

Friend Sleep has betrayed me I’m trapped

in a castle with villainess villain two

doors open a third slams down before

the darkness I’m trapped in a room my

friends accuse me I hide my sheets I cannot

tell them I’m dying and then awaking I’m

hurting (why these dreams?) my betraying self

In sleep a holocaust rations trapped

in a kitchen ovens coming why not eat

them if food is scarce—

In Gaza food

is scarce, power lost, the UN Compound,

a hospital hit today, now over 1000 dead—

But see, here, History: the Future: some

hope, though still rationed, is Coming Soon.

stuck zipper sticky egg

wiped off mouth mother’s

mouth lined around but

pursed now closer why

not eat touch again all

right merge again then

zip: put sleep to sleep

Today the train too fast

they said too soon they

said not yet they said

to Washington all

right now a black

man to the White

House on the train.

On his way to the Capitol largely built by slaves

who baked bricks, cut, laid stone—

on his way

to stand before the Mall where slaves were held

in pens and sold—

on his way to a White

House partly built by slaves, where another

resident, after his Proclamation, wrote:

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

One hundred years later, King said

and said to the crowd on the Mall,

Now is the time and We can never

be satisfied as long as, he

dreamed: every valley

exalted, all these years until

not an end, they said, a beginning

O bless hold help keep

him safe, let him help

us through this cold,

let us help him help

us through this

cold, let its end be

O yes a beginning.

Cold is in the air, troops are finally out

of Gaza where 1300 dead are on or in

the ground where olive trees are up-

rooted, down, spoons a coloring

book limbs shoes in the rubble—

In the depths of winter, he said.

Today he is In, at work.

White roof over the roof, white

branches clinging to branches, even

the still fallen snow is moving, even

icicles shift toward dripping, nothing,

not even the cold bodies we are

becoming is not moving, not even

the ground is not moving, over, on

Beyond my windowed

wall, gray clouds move over

clouds,

beyond the Wall

that grays Gaza, dust

over dust of disturbed

bodies,

wall with drawn-

in windows, winter mirror

cold heart comfort shoulder

feet hands water drawn

in from left out

take stay sober stone

grave still body turn

on light open to

warm up front heart

fallen snow shifts

blows drifts from tree

to ground, leaves

the beautiful skeletal

limbs open to only

all over air wind

lifts then lets fall

He stumbled but still, she blundered

but still, they said what they shouldn’t

have said and recovered, of course

they are the great but even the small

(though all, we early learn, may fall)

may leave the mistaken, misspoken

behind as late we stumble into our selves.

maybe not long, you said,

cancer cancer cancer, c’s

crashing like waves—

waves of frozen foam

that day on that lake—

you who please don’t go I

can late we I can better Love I

mouth with you to mouth

with you to body with you

in body embodied, not yet un-

bodied Love I can better no

room so warm as with—

I think I thought I could I

can but not without you

In Vietnam: new year of the water buffalo,

steady, slow, welcomed with peach

blossoms, fruits, red wine—

In Gaza: year of the new

war, now ended but no room to bury

the dead, no place for the living

to buy food, water, any ...

for the woman who cooks

on a fire of sticks, her bag

of clothes on a tree

for those going home

to water their trees, lemon

and almond and olive

and for those trees

snow to rain to ice to melt to

freeze frame window grayed

in with old self same but

new has come can better

Love I—going home bless keep

clean gray slate not white or black for

even these few words, this small rain

Source: Day Unto Day (Milkweed Editions, 2014)

New Year’s Poems