Today

tearing up a woman’s face in Connecticut.

And as the Taliban were given the suburbs

of Swat in which to stone to death women

taken in adultery, a Muslim in New York

whose radio station promoted Islam

as the most humane religion cut off

his wife’s head. Tomorrow, of course,

will be another day, but we live one day

at a time. Yesterday I uncovered the ribbon

snake in the woodpile, stiff and cold

in its winter sleep. A new urgency for spring:

I put the split log back and took my wood

from the farther end of the last stack.

What’s with the chimp? I wondered,

driving between filthy snowbanks past stark

trees like bony hands clawing up out

of the frozen earth to grab a gray heaven.

My wife thinks it’s all that wireless buzz

hissing unbeknownst through everyone’s

brains. I lean more toward toilet training.

For sure, it began to go bad one unknown day

before history when the last man

was browbeaten to step beyond a globe

of golden firelight to drain his dragon

in outer darkness. But we can’t dwell

in the past, can we? “To spring out on”

we call hereabouts the firewood we wade

through crusted snow to cut in March.

Someone just might have to wake up

early this year. But, then, let’s just try

to stay in the day, shall we?