Poetry |

“Renvyle: Night Collage Seven” and “Salt Meadow”

Renvyle: Night Collage Seven

 

 

I could sit shiva for Sky, if I lived near

her loved ones. Instead I pull up a stool

and listen to the night, seek out

the lights on Clare Island until low clouds

move in and seem to snuff them,

 

and I think how in Cold War Berlin

they planned to turn down the air

in the fallout shelters

so no one had the oxygen to rebel.

Closer to home, our neighbor is hurrying

 

along the sea lane through the dark.

What is needed in the barn this late?

Imagine. Not enough oxygen.

But that’s the problem.

We can’t imagine.

 

People have returned

to the house up the hill

and every window is ablaze.

Together, they make a city,

a miniature Jerusalem.

 

After the winter storm departed

we found the gunwale of a wooden boat

washed up in our garden, and from somewhere,

decades ago, my mother’s voice reciting: Where

did you come from, baby dear?

 

Out of the everywhere

into the here.

I miss my friend who once

lived in the heart of Venice.

Salve, Sky. Salve.

 

Who knows where this all ends up.

All those watery stars.

If I knew how I’d pull up this island

like a low chair and listen for you.

Or rebuild that boat and row.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Salt Meadow

 

I’m sweeping and thinking of my father

when you call me over

 

to watch a dog careening

through early summer

 

in the field between our house

and the sea. First here,

 

the head’s quick flight

above the grasses, its fur russet

 

as the foxes of my childhood,

then gone. The meadow itself

 

soon to be mown,

the smaller and smaller circles

 

of the haying coming near again.

My father’s words rimmed with age:

 

I am getting edged off.

He didn’t mean it kindly.

 

Grace again — for it is Grace,

our neighbors’ dog —

 

ears hanging in the air

like a bird’s copper wings

 

then falling from sight.

The grasses of the field,

 

like promises of abundance. Or like

the return of all these swallows.

 

My father’s words mixing

with my worries

 

over just how much will be enough

to see us through.

 

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