Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Helix #2

a drab January goldfinch
a letter written on yellow legal paper October 1978
a white two-story house a red door

an Oregon butte flashing orange at sunrise
a tidal pool pulsing with sea urchins
you are far removed

a junco skittering across the porch
a willow bough frothy with wet snow
a quart of Ballantine ale

a white pick-up a ladder in the truck bed a
magpie scudding above the highway
winter’s horizons shimmering with ghosts

fog rolling blue & white from the ridge
you are sobbing & nothing adds up
a yellow January sunrise

a yellow August sunrise a screen window
a bald eagle perched atop a cottonwood
a dog-eared copy of Leaves of Grass

irrigation pipe on wheels sunk in the drifts
a brown fedora a black print skirt
a willow’s orange limbs in the snow in Lake Fork

you are somewhere in the fog beyond the fog
a summer morning’s sobbing birdcalls
a gray t-shirt a pair of stained Reeboks a television

wire-rimmed glasses red flannel pajamas
irrevocable distance between then & now
footprints in snow on the frozen lake


Jack Hayes
© 2010

4 comments:

  1. This is beautiful! I like how it gathers speed, how the last stanza is more hurried and louder than the rest of it.

    The image that really struck me is the willow bough frothy with snow. I love that image!

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  2. Hi Adriana: Thanks so much! & thanks for following--very much appreciated.

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