Wishbone

Thanksgiving day, and the

turkey was cooked and carved,

white meat cleaved from bone,

father’s job, his only other job

but to stay out of the way,

out of the kitchen, his

place assigned elsewhere, hands

folded over belly, full, napping,

football unwatched on the TV,

victory drowned out in snoring;

and the carcass, cool now, stripped

nude but for bits of meat hanging uneaten,

carcass waiting, bare and waiting,

for me, my job but to find the wishbone,

dried and hard and brittle,

a wish made, two halves pulled

and bone broken, splintered,

chips flying from snapped ends;

but wishes made, like wishbones broken, break,

for a brother’s still there when

you wished him away and

on Monday after the long break,

the long break’s wish, you’re

pushed and pulled, picked on yet again,

no matter how much you believed

in the long side of the wishbone,

no matter how much you believed,

it always seemed to be the wrong side,

the wish untrue, the wishbone broken;

and the war raged on

and he never came home;

perhaps on Thanksgiving, in a bunker,

my brother made the same wish I did

and pulled the shorter side of

a wishbone, bone snapping, chips flying, and

his wish, like mine, did not come true

as he lay there dying, alone,

on Thanksgiving day, an American holiday

they wouldn’t stop the war for

and no matter how many wishbones

I pulled and broke, snapped, the

long side in my hand, glorious victory drowned,

his shorter broken wish took priority over mine.

Ice This Morning

Ice this early morning on the puddles and windshields

and a thin layer forming on the lake, in the shallows,

as winter begins his move, driving out fall completely,

stripped now of her colors, reds and orange,

yellows and browns gone to bare limbs reaching out,

imploring, her nakedness laid open, revealed and revealing;

the nights, too, are colder, and a heavy frost settles in,

hoarfrost, coating the world in translucency, changing

what was into something new and different, changed,

and a mist rises from the lake, a fog, blurring

the distant shore below a darker sky, this early morning,

a radiance, a deeper clarity flooded with a moonlit brilliance,

a darkness punctuated by stars, grouped, constellatory,

approving and unmoved, the nature of things unchanging;

and the air burns my nose and cheeks, a biting cold,

carrying with it the rhythmic scrape of ice removed,

scraped away, a reason to be here, in early morning's darkness,

my neighbors and I, an excuse, perhaps,

a few minutes alone, solitary, deliberate, wistful,

touched by winter’s arrival, nature’s cycles changing,

a giving way, changing us, changed ourselves, this cold morning,

readied, awaiting the snows ahead and the days to come.

Birds at My Feeder

They’ve survived for years, millennia even,

well past their dinosaur days evolving

into finch and nuthatch and chickadee,

black-capped, yellow-breasted, barred wings

a-flutter, crowding my bird feeder of sunflower seeds

purchased, monthly, 50 pounds, from the local market

to feed them now in the winter months’

cold and snow, birds flocking to my yard,

scores of them, unbothered by my sitting here

watching from my window, rocking here,

warmed by a mug of tea and their song,

surviving regardless of my feeding them,

feeding them but a reason to sit here,

warmed, watching them, surviving.

First Snowfall

In the darkening sky of a first snowfall,

the stillness grows even more still, more silent

as birds tuck into themselves against the cold

and the squirrels curl into their burrows;

 
and in the gathering silence, falling snow
is the only sound we hear, a softness raining,
snow brushing clear the air around it,
the hush of winter’s world settling white;

the only other sound, unheard, is ourselves, hearts beating,

curled and tucked into our own burrows, into ourselves,

our faces reflected in the glass we peer through, listening
to the stillness, to the soft hush of first snow falling.

The Mechanic

Dad was a mechanic, a damn good mechanic,

patient and thorough, almost fatherly,

fixing errant machines that wouldn’t move earth

or themselves but lay unstarted where they quit,

delaying some progress, a new highway to be built

or a bridge to span a New England river meandering,

a broken something only he could know, only he could fix,

and on weekends, sometimes, a Saturday

before his Lord’s day off, he would take me, too,

to sit at the controls, fueling my imagination,

an imagined life pulling levers and pushing back the earth,

a power around me, the roar of the engine in my mind

louder than the puttering from my lips, oblivious

to the silence around me or to the squeak and clash

of wrenches loosening and tightening, retightening

the nuts and bolts to put this mover of earth

to right again, just as he would loosen and tighten,

retighten the nuts and bolts of my life,

put to right the errant son, puttering, unstarted,

pulling levers that didn’t work, my imagination fueled,

and pushing against the earth of my life, impeding progress,

an unbuilt highway, an unbuilt bridge, where I quit,

the roar of my engine loud in my mind, oblivious,

something only he could know, only he could fix,

patient and thorough, fatherly.

Closing up the Camp

It’s late, later than usual, this moving day,

closing up the camp, readying it

for hibernation in the winter snow, falling

soon enough, sooner than we may be ready for,

but a single pair of loons still calls out,

echoing in the early morning and in late night’s darkness,

enticing us to stay, the loons, too,

perhaps, not wanting to leave either,

like us, remaining here, late in going,

and the squirrels scamper still above us,

foraging for winter’s larder tucked away,

as we lay here, warm under electric heat,

for the nights are getting colder, lower, in the 20s,

the days not rising much above freezing's boundary,

and we fear the pipes’ freezing, and the mess,

this camp not a winter camp, but the summer home

we cling to into autumn, holding on,

a morning fire crackling in the wood stove,

smoke rising acrid through unsealed cracks,

and the cast iron taking on the heat to warm us,

taking off the morning chill, so today,

giving in, letting go -- it’s time -- 

the cold and the fear drive us out,

back to the warmth of our winter place,

furnace warmed, a warmth held in by insulated walls

against the winter cold and snow,

to ward off what we cannot change, cannot stop,

but today, one last time till spring's thaw, we huddle together

around the stove, the fire snapping, sipping coffee, silent

and alone in our thoughts, delaying what we must do,

reflecting on our own lives, our own autumns,

the seasons of our lives, what we cannot change,

what we cannot stop, letting go.