Poem for Tuesday

Called Back
By Michelle Mitchell-Foust

        580 Main, Amherst

I understood
those lines about birds.

I heard your house
from the other side,

its ice dropping
from the windows

and thawing
onto the slabs of ice

already slipped
off the porch.

At the foot of
the economy car,

the pinecone thawed
in my pocket, sister

of the little ones
at your grave.

*

I smelled the sap
on my hands

before I saw it--
black from the lining

in my pocket--
even the plant's fingers

dozed off
in the cold--

the idols of thought
frozen at the knob,

and I asked you--to myself
if we were relatives.

*

For some, discipline
is taking things away.

For some, it's adding.
Emily, I always add.

Just like the man
in your window,

putting on his heavy coat.
Your voice in his ear

the frequency
of the human heart.

*

Oh your great heart-
colored house lying still--

oh your great green shutter
hanging off its hinge

at the wet window
where a man puts on his coat.

Like the air
up under the coat,

the famous trees
cut loose

in a gesture
worthy of silence.

--------

Another by this poet now that I have discovered her. (We had the ice dropping from the windows today.) The way the word "grave" bursts in at the end of the first section and shatters the poem into a different one. Wow.

Further proof that Intelligent Design is a stupid theory: menstrual cramps.

Snow day today; kids did lots of sledding and snow fort building, I watched and took pictures from a distance to avoid snowballs. Younger son had a friend over most of the day because friend's mother had to take her newborn to the doctor for a bad rash, older son spent part of the day at a friend's after a war with me over the homework I made him finish first. Spent part of the morning taping chocolate hearts to younger son's class Valentines which he resisted addressing; then remembered that one child in his class has a peanut allergy and another has a lactose allergy, so had to go find safe popsicles for them. Wrote two of three articles, not by midnight GMT but given the amount of coming and going and the numbers of laundry generated by sledding children, was still impressed with myself.

And for background fun while working, sons wanted to watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, younger son to see the whales, older son to see the nuclear wessels. Who am I to deny my children Star Trek, ever? "Double dumb-ass on you!" Meanwhile, look: even the baby panda likes snow!


Last night's sunset as we drove to my parents' house.


A view up my parents' street at twilight.


One of my kids sleds down a hill while the other climbs up it.


This last photo belongs to the Smithsonian from the link above, but I include it for posterity for the adorable factor.

Secret admirers and ! Thank you for my chocolates and my roses! And , thank you for my books! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!