This early in the season
it’s still all practice.
World runs through its moves
like memorizing flash cards or scales.
This is how snow sits in
a field of corn stubble,
pockmarked little faces.
This is how it falls
straight down, silent—
Remember the hint is the word “blanket”
for sidewalks and flat suburban lawns.
Trees? Pay attention.
You’re always drifting off
when you’re the most rooted of all.
Stop dreaming of bird’s nests and concentrate
on holding still for that one perfect line of
snow on every twig.
Apple tree, the way you shape that drift
in the curve of your branch
so it looks like a heart
is perfect. We’re ready
for opening night.
Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems
Practicing Winter
Other Things Shine
At the grocery store
a cheerful man is
hanging paper snowflakes
from the ceiling.
Each one is coated in silver glitter
and is bigger than his head.
You can’t help but look up.
He smiles while he works, says
something funny to each of us,
the dozens of shoppers who pass by.
He stands at the top of a ladder
with all his supplies—
A ball of string, scissors, metal hangars
and a stack of snowflakes
sprinkling cheer and glitter.
By the end of his shift
he’ll shine.
Old Movie Morning
Before dawn, the view
is the exact shade of old black and white movies.
Any second, a couple may walk down this street—
He’ll be tall and dark haired, in a suit and a fedora.
She’s in careful curls, wearing a dress with shoulder pads,
cinched waist and wide belt above a skirt you
know would swirl if she circled quickly enough
around and around like the seasons we pass through–
till we are all pulled into the story:
It’s winter in Bedford Falls
and no matter how we forget (over and over) again
as she twirls and seasons rush by–
this life is full of wonders.
Snowstorm
The sky brightened to steady grey
showing the swells and ridges of snow that fell,
the world busily churning it from the air while we slept.
Now, just rest. Breathe and look out the window
at this passing moment. Snow stopped falling
an hour ago.
Now, you try. See how quiet
Now, before anyone else wakes and we
hurry to match the world’s efforts by
making breakfast and mistakes and covering
them all with flurries of snow and words.
Christmas Arrives
…in her huge carriage, metal couplings and bits of horse’s harness creaking in the cold air. The doors burst open, because even the minutes are overstuffed. Her cart is laden with packages and glinting bits of tinsel and out in the night someone is singing a carol, soft and off-key, the way they do. The whole day ahead is stacked high with responsibilities and gifts and the secret, delicious joy of seeing them as one woven present.
Found Poem: A Christmas Carol
Christmas was a humbug,
to begin with.
Marley was dead.
The men who watched the light
had built a fire by
the rough table where they sat,
always in earnest.
In came a fiddler
making a great stir.
She was exceedingly pretty
when she laughed.
Every man among them
had a Christmas thought.
It seemed to shine.
He listened for an hour,
his poor, forgotten self
Forgotten.
It had been a very old song
Not an echo, not a sigh.
In possession of the world–
The world, so irresistibly contagious.
Meteorologists
In careful suits, with shinyholiday ties,
they point to maps and frown,
deeply serious as they
caution us to stock up
on candles and flashlight batteries
and avoid unnecessary travel.
But it’s no use. The disguise always slips.
Beneath forecasts full of warnings
they can’t hide
their excited voices, the eager faces
of nine-year-old boys
primed for a snow day,
ready to be amazed by weather.
Vacation With Teenagers
She is on the couch,
watching her laptop
as if it’s about to do a trick
or reveal the meaning of life.
He is closed in his bedroom
with his books and guitar.
This goes on for hours.
“Kids these days…,” is an actual phrase
forming in my head.
Wake up.
He is writing a new song.
She is searching for her way in the world.
They are forging their paths,
while reclining.
After all I tried to teach,
they learned this:
To value being comfortable
on the journey.
Clementine
Every poem holds its secrets
till it’s written down and opened
the same way this tangerine’s
cool spray of sweet and tart
is held under its rough skin
and the way it glows
knowing it was born
in a place that’s lovely to say.
How can you not glow,
being from Valencia?
Working the Angles
In the rainy grocery store parking lot
a little boy splashes
mesmerized by his shiny black boots.
I want to point him out, ask if you remember
how you wanted to sleep in rain boots at that age.
But I know better. We’re busy arguing
about dropping Trigonometry.
I’ll never need it, you say.
What is it good for?
I am almost sure
it has something to do with celestial navigation,
Mariners measuring angles,
Astronomers mapping distances between stars.
You roll your eyes.
Remind me you don’t plan a career
watching stars or the sea.
These days I could use a map.
Something to help me navigate
the distance between stars, or something closer–
the little boy you were,
the man you nearly are.
