Past Inclemency & Present Warmth
It was
time that was
the tenderness—eden, as it is
in need of
and tolerating no history—thus no tracks
of conventionalism in our shared patched boot
and oversoul pasts—just new snow, crossed through
like uncommon winter birds do—making paths invisible
but to few
—
But too few
continue—I've started to
think differently of nests
needs and webs. It's inevitable
I guess—& yet resplendent
isn't it? Always
a shocking testament
to what? Home? I don't know
how paradise found its parade
but I love it—patterns in steam
spinning off the Tivoli
brewing tower yesterday—eye beams
into steel
greylit grey
glisten glistening
Copyright © 2014 by Eryn Green. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on March 28, 2014. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
"This poem takes its title from the beginning of Hawthorne's 'Blithedale Romance,' after a snowstorm and before a drowning. I was compelled to think about the apt description offered of both writing and living, insofar as both take place in a kind of constant present-tense stretching out from our cold and frozen shared cosmological origins, toward the vastness of futurity and we-don't-know-what. This liminal indeterminacy has implications both terrifying and exhilarating, and this poem revels in the latter briefly, the opportunity to maybe forget history for a moment, watch the wind blow off towers in the mean time, maybe have a drink, which, at least in certain moments, can seem like quite the warm proposal indeed."
—Eryn Green