When I'm out in the second hand shops, I love perusing the books. I love buying the books. When I buy the books they come in two categories, Readable Books and Rip-Able books that I later use in artwork, etc. This weekend I found two great Rip-able Books, but also one fabulous book of poetry translations, the poetry that of William Matthews.
I absolutely adore this piece which is the first page I randomly opened to, grabbing the book up off the desk tonight, to take to the bed for a bit of pre-snooze reading. The poem is too-too-TOO perfect for this time of the year.
My little grand girls have been playing in the last snows in our yard during the latter parts of last week, and part of the weekend. The snow indeed stretches from our yard to the next and the next and the next, across several vacant/undeveloped lots. The snow still exists today, though I don't think there is a square inch of it that doesn't hold their tracks, the tracks of the fox, the dogs and the occasional deer. But it is still there.
Still there to remind us that this particular season is ending, but has not ended yet. Spring is definitely set to arrive, but I figuratively love this particular piece of poetry and its emotional landscape, but I also LITERALLY LOVE this particular piece of poetry for its mention of the last white stretch of winter.
For all of you out there who would hate me for wishing for a "Winter Snow," you'll realize when reading this piece that the winter snow doesn't have to be falling (although a late last flutter of the white stuff would be cool). It can be enough that it still stretches and yawns and grows lazy at night and sleeps in the yard, its tiny respite from the meltdown. [oh, what am i saying ... i really would like a "winter snow" with snow being the action word!]
Before I go mad and shake the snow globe, I give you instead, this last piece of winter ...
SPRING SNOW by William Matthews
Here comes the powdered milk I drank
as a child, and the money it saved.
Here come the papers I delivered,
the spotted dog in heat that followed me home
and the dogs that followed her.
Here comes a load of white laundry
from basketball practice, and sheets
with their watermarks of semen.
And here comes snow, a language
in which no word is ever repeated,
love is impossible,and remorse ...
Yet childhood doesn't end,
but accumulates, each memory
knit to the next, and the fields
become one field. If to die is to lose
all detail, then death is not
so distinguished, but a profusion
of detail, a last gossip, character
passed wholly into fate and fate
in flecks, like dust, like flour, like snow.
