A Restful Holiday to All

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Perfect Storm

The Sea Chews Things Up

by Cleopatra Mathis

When I woke, the waves had gone black,

turning over the macerated

curd of the ocean bottom, heaving its sludge

onto the beach. Some storm far out, I thought,

had ravaged the sea, stirred up its bed,

sent the whole mess flying to shore.

At my feet I found a grave of starfish,

broken and gnarled among the fleshy

snipes and heads. Every shade of death

covered the sand. It looked hopeless

in the pale day but for the birds,

a congress of gulls, terns, and the rarest plovers,

calm for once, satiated, a measure of

the one law: this sea will claim it all—

feed them, catch them, grind their complicated bones.

Withering Heights

Late February

by Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

Farmhouse,Skagit City Rd., Mt. Vernon Wa. USA

Between

The Sacred Flame

by Marin Sorescu

Throw a few more logs

on to the sun,

in a few billion years,

they say, it will

go out.

When there’s no firewood left

you can use the meadows

that could just as well have been woodland,

then the mountains, the moon and the sky

of which we don’t know for sure

that they are not wood.

Just keep throwing

something on to it,

a few logs,

a few lives.

For look, already a flicker

passes over our faces,

now they are handsome, now ugly,

now they are day, now they’re night,

now they are seasons, now years.

Home on the Range

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.
Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

You’re
by Sylvia Plath