Tuesday poem #473 : Robert Hogg : The Poem that Starts in the Night

 

 

            I

If I look out the window
of this house I am given
to live in white
ice and snow
my own heart
frozen
the landscape
a picture
of what I am
to myself   

    my family my
surroundings
softer
and warmer
than ever I might
in a more luckless
time have known 

    but I do not
count my blessings
as I know I should
    though there are
no shoulds
she tells me                   

    four chairs to sit on
and a sleeping cat
on each
   Motley
on the divan
   Big Kitty
on the rocker
I might push to
the window and read
in the coming
light
    Hamlet
asleep on another
    and in the easy chair
    Baby Cat
curled up
in peace 

And all this
reminds me
to let things
fall into place
around me
as best I can

    Leslie
asleep in our bed
our next child deep
in her womb

    Ethan
in his crib   
    what
pleasures and fears
will lead him
away from his soul
    what kind
word or hand
someday
lead him back

            II 

On the third
of February
I make my
annual call
for spring 

Winter is
killing me
again it
finds me
as usual
wrapped in myself

Every winter
it’s the same old
thing only
older      older
this is what
the ritual
seasons
always forget
to tell
            that we all die
            a real and final
            death as well
and each of these
winters
brings us closer
to what it means
to turn white
as driven
snow

 

            III 

God knows
we try to beat it
as even these Hyacinths
forced into life
bloom now
in February
for our delight
but will not again  

    though planted in
    the ground they are
    perennial
    and multiply
    their kind   

    we kill them
    for their beauty
    breed them against
    themselves
    so we can have
    life in a landscape
    of death
    a fragrance of
    winter spring           

    It is true
even the best
would kill
anything
to have life
in their world           

            though some
            I believe
            would die
            rather than kill
            just to live
 

            IV 

   So this
hyacinth
blossoms
and love
fills our house 

everyone
including the dog
and Nelly
curled up in
the kitchen
are in a possible
dream of summer
such as only
warm sleep
and fragrance
can provide 

while I am
awake thinking
the many ways
you have made
this house
a bit of brightness
when your own thoughts
are shadowed
much of the time

 

            V 

    Love that
comes in the night
or early in
the morning
flees
at first light
when doubt
beckons
and the mind
questions every
action every
belief become
illusion
    sleeping arms
and legs now
shards of intellect
bits of hair in my eyes
shreds of my own
nakedness
a heart
pounding fear
because I cannot
believe an age old
dream of love
and renewal
could still
be true 

    If only I
could bow
my head
unthinking
for a while
let my spine
uncoil my
limbs
loosen
a little
maybe then
I could feel
the near
death
a dreaming
hyacinth
allows

 

            VI 

    And what do I fear

    That I need to die 

I do not
need to die this
hyacinth saves
my neck from the ax
for a time at least
grows pink in the dark
basement before
being brought to light
where it blooms now
in the frosted pane

It shows me a gentler
birth a gentler
death courts the heart
so we who live and die
in the world of which
we are the instance
day in and day out
may find our way
to withstand
the undoing of night

    And so we force
these hyacinths
to bloom always
and necessarily
ahead of nature’s
call and then
discard them
for the real
spring flowers 

    So too the poem
bursts in the dark
awaiting light

RLH: Hawthorne Farm, Gloucester ON: 1973-02-03, when Leslie was pregnant with Cyrus.
Rev: Mtn: 2020-06-24-25; 2020-07-12; 2020-07-13; 2021-12-27.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Hogg was born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in the Cariboo and Fraser Valley in British Columbia, and attended UBC during the early Sixties where he was associated with the Vancouver TISH poets, co-edited MOTION - a prose newsletter, and graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing. His books include: The Connexions, Berkeley: Oyez, 1966; Standing Back, Toronto: Coach House, 1972; Of Light, Toronto: Coach House, 1978; Heat Lightning, Windsor: Black Moss, 1986; There Is No Falling, Toronto: ECW,1993; and as editor, An English Canadian Poetics, The Confederation Poets – Vol. 1, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009. He recently published several chapbooks: from LAMENTATIONS, Ottawa: above/ground, 2016; two Cariboo poems, Ranch Days – The McIntosh from hawk/weed press in Kemptville, ON; Ranch Days—for Ed Dorn from battleaxe press (Ottawa 2019); A Quiet Affair – Vancouver ’63 (Trainwreck, May 2021); and in August 2021 a chapbook titled From Each Forthcoming (above/ground). In December 2021, a chapbook will be released from Hogwallow Press, called The Red Menace, and another from Apt 9 Press in Ottawa, called Apothegms.

rhe Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #472 : Lindsey Webb : from Garden

 

Winter comes to the garden, then fall, then summer. Hours construct themselves exactly as fast as they disintegrate. I came here to read and speculate but forgot how I got in. Ants imply distance to cover; death implies time has gone on without you; I should start over. Maybe I’ll go into real estate. You place your finger lightly on a string, and the garden oscillates at several modes. I put on a face like a window and walk around the plat. I’m waiting for the northern cardinal to catch his reflection in my face, to wear himself out fighting it.

 

 

 

 

Lindsey Webb is the author of a chapbook, House (Ghost Proposal, 2020). Her poetry and other writings have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Chicago Review, jubilat, Vestiges, and Lana Turner, among others. She was named a 2021 National Poetry Series finalist. She lives in Salt Lake City, where she is a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan