In Praise of December 30, 2009

The baby has discovered the Christmas tree this morning

and my thoughts rest in Ohio strangely as though Ohio

is the right place for this time of year. The snow-plow scrapes

the gutter from a block away and I hear it in my sleep 

like a bird-swoop or some kind of dinosaur invented

to remind us of the place we’re all headed to someday. Yesterday

morning I woke up early because for some reason I set the coffee pot

to brew at five. The baby slept till eight. Zach Schomburg

just sent me a notification that it’s my move in what may

be the longest chess game in history, and I don’t mull my move

this time. I don’t read a line or two of Ted Berrigan before bed

anymore, and the bed still feels the same. Since I started

this poem, the baby has gone upstairs for her morning nap

and now she’s saying her favorite word over and over again

as I listen to her through the baby monitor. The fuzz

of an incoming call or some kind of interference reminds me

that all we are in the end is noise and noise and noise. It’s a new

year soon and the snow outside melts famously, then freezes

at night like it has for a million winters and will continue 

for a million more. We live on a street with a dozen half-painted

houses and for once it’s all beginning to make perfect sense.

Transcription from a Questioning

Affection depends on a suspension

of belief, though I’m alive enough

this Monday to hear the interstate

traffic at a simple enough distance.

Like mocking an intended non sequitur,

the trees maintain their repose. Yes,

the doorbell rang. No, I did not answer

when I saw what appeared to be

an entire family clutching books

and looking mournful. Symmetry

becomes strange like anything else

if you stare at it long enough.

A Triptych for Weather and Words

Everything starts somewhere and every beginning

makes me wonder what happened before that. You

hide your yawn in the palm of your hand. This isn’t

at all like a golf ball falling from the sky or a bird

pecking the eyes out of its reflection. A nowhere

usually begins as a somewhere, but the opposite

does not hold true. The first lawnmower

of the year starts up with little effort

and no one thinks to call it a miracle

or even partially divine. Today the meteorologists

have become linguists—they redefine the idea

of partially-cloudy and breezy with a high near

sixty-one. For some reason, weather seems to be

the place where most thoughts end. Is it because

of the way wind welcomes an arrival with such

ease? A friend once said each raindrop is an oath

or a promise (I can’t remember which), though I’m not

quite sure the name of anything makes much difference.