Poem: Tuesdays on Slate

With my apologies to the Atlanta Review,

which is the true source for the best new poetry

(imho), but which, sadly, does not publish on line . . . .

Slate

It is Tuesday

and so even

before checking

my stock or

opening my email

to see what has

gone awry while

I was sleeping

or if there is

something newly

funny circum-

navigating

the worldwide web,

I go straight to

Slate to read the

weekly poem

because as

everyone

who attends to

poetry knows

Slate offers the best

new poetry,

except, of course,

for The New Yorker,

which also

publishes old

poetry if

the poet has

recently died

or there is a

new translation

from the Polish,

and I suddenly

wonder: when did

the minutiae

of everyday life

articulated

in triple-barreled

words become

the stuff of

poetry and

whatever happened

to love and loss

and when was it

exactly that

we decreed

that Truth should be

quotidian?

Poem: "If Only It Were True Dr. Williams"

A lawyer's poem, for anyone who's ever been late to court:

so much depends

upon

a yellow

taxi

stalled in
traffic
beside the Triborough tolls

And Would-Be Poet

Sometimes I think all lawyers fancy themselves writers. In honor of this weekend's lovely snowfall, here is proof I am not unique:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Snow

i.

Nothing sounds in the silence

Of the woods

Except each step

Balancing on the surface ice

Before breaking through

To snow.

ii.

Some creatures prefer the snow.

I have seen them in the woods:

The owl and wolf,

Garbed in white,

Long after the butterflies

Have flown for Mexico.

iii.

In the early days

Suffused with joy at the first snow and all else that was

New and clean, she lay down before him

And swept an angel in the drifts.

iv.

When the snow reaches

Nearly to your knees

You will know the leeks

Are strong and sweet.

v.

Wrap yourself in white, if you will,

But you must know

Pristine and fragile as the virgin snow,

It cannot survive your touch.

vi.

Build her a house on the plain:

Build it square and strong.

Build it to withstand the snows.

vii.

A man with a woman

Is one.

A woman and the snow

Are one.

viii.

No living thing has touched

The snows on the far slope

Not even a blackbird.

ix.

At its edges, the field is brown.

But some snow remains

Not just as patches

In the center of the field

But also piled against the woodpile,

Too deep to fire the hearth.

x.

Do you see? She is

Like a single flake of snow

Dissolving to droplets on a glove,

Then darkening the spot just

Long enough to be remarked upon

Before disappearing.

xi.

They opposed her wish to move North,

Saying, “At the solstice the sun will never rise.”

They could not understand

It, seems, that the moon

Reflected on the snow shines

More brilliantly than the stars.

xii.

I find I have no words

That will describe for you

The azure cellophane blues of the Yucatan sea.

They say the Eskimos have thirty-seven words for snow.

How many words for white?

xiii.

I will melt

With the snow silently

Into Spring.