Six Winter Privacy Poems

1

About four, a few flakes.

I empty the teapot out in the snow,

feeling shoots of joy in the new cold.

By nightfall, wind,

the curtains on the south sway softly.

2

My shack has two rooms; I use one.

The lamplight falls on my chair and table

and I fly into one of my own poems-

I can't tell you where-

as if I appeared where I am now,

in a wet field, snow falling.

3

More of the fathers are dying each day.

It is time for the sons.

Bits of darkness are gathering around them.

The darkness appears as flakes of light.

4

Sitting Alone

There is a solitude like black mud!

Sitting in this darkness singing,

I can't tell if this joy

is from the body, or the soul, or a third place.

5

Listening to Bach

There is someone inside this music

who is not well described by the names

of Jesus, or Jehovah, or the Lord of Hosts!

6

'When I woke, new snow had fallen.

I am alone, yet someone else is with me,

drinking coffee, looking out at the snow.