Not thaw brought to the river—

            thought, long winter a surface that holds

no current or image.

            And there’s language laid down like that, mind

 

locked in a long walk through the chill of a single word, and there’s cattails

            fraught where water’s not

any longer, and God’s a pall called down to mind the meaning

            given a life. Once thought

 

the word makes mind too small

            like Bible-colored Sundays all study and chalk and exotic

potted palms dotting a holy land

            entirely crayon and the lavender mimeographs leave

 

on the hands. The word God has always been my mother’s

            fingers separating

my sister’s hair, three strands gathered in a braid so tight white at the parted dark

            roots stood out, word

 

a migraine in its wake, word endured alone in a room. Shades

            drawn over pain, word’s

a mind’s light ingrown, caught, nitid knot snarled upon

            itself…Subzero, months

 

from thaw, we walk—o trees, trouble,

            tremble at the roots of being, underneath,

under laws, the order of things

            so deeply a violence and unnumbered like the snow.