The Winter Calf

The winter calf knows only

this snow, 

this quiet, 

this still field

of many mothers cooing

standing close by to preserve

this small life.

No siblings or peers to speak of, 

none that have survived their arrival, 

the winter calf becomes inward.

Watch him watching you 

as you dole out the bails of grass,

as you call in the dogs,

as you try to take care.

Across the long expanse of yard

the winter calf stands for hours

watching the forest for signs of life

during the deepest cold in decades.

You cannot tell me that this one 

is lonely.

He is loved for his singularity.

A source of hope for the mothers of loss;

a source of warmth during longer nights.

Do not try to write this poem

This poem will be

a blue river   that recedes from you

and rushes toward 

the ocean

that is everything.

Do not try to hold it

it is not yours to 

break or bend or bleed into.

This poem is a hand.

how can your words be a hand? only hands

and sometimes rivers

can be hands.

This poem will be a hand

that signals the beginning

of a world.

This poem will be the fall

it will be winter and then

it will melt.

do not try to write this poem.

Do not try to write this poem.

It is not yours to bend or break or 

bleed into.

It is a blue river

that will recede from you

and rush

into the ocean that is everything.

winter canyons

This year is a clear sky with a wind chill like the feel

of my heart

has been breaking ever since the beginning

it won’t stop falling wide open.

I cannot stop this falling wide open.

Every time I cry

 every time i bust open these stones

i am trying to excavate some truth in this skin

this shiftable maze of vein

i drive down roads full of orchards and lakes

sing with my lungs at the top

scream out someones name that is not mine