By the Creek

Late light on the creek as the mallards assemble.

Darkening, Then Brightening

The sky keeps lying to the farmhouse,
lining up its heavy clouds
above the blue table umbrella,
then launching them over the river.
And the day feels hopeless
until it notices a few trees
dropping delicately their white petals
on the grass beside the birdhouse
perched on its wooden post,
the blinking fledglings stuffed inside
like clothes in a tiny suitcase. At first
you wandered lonely through the yard
and it was no help knowing Wordsworth
felt the same, but then Whitman
comforted you a little, and you saw
the grass as uncut hair, yearning
for the product to make it shine.

Now you lie on the couch beneath the skylight,
the sky starting to come clean,
mixing its cocktail of sadness and dazzle,
a deluge and then a digging out
and then enough time for one more
dance or kiss before it starts again,
darkening, then brightening.
You listen to the tall wooden clock
in the kitchen: its pendulum clicks
back and forth all day, and it chimes
with a pure sound, every hour on the hour,
though it always mistakes the hour.

Kim Addonizio

copyright 2015 by the author.

I have known the work of Kim Addonizio for a long time, ever since she was a young poet making a big splash in the Bay Area years and years ago. But I don't think I have featured a poem of hers here. I can definitely recommend the book she wrote on writing with Dorianne Laux, and another called Ordinary Genius; a guide for the poet within, as well as her many books of poems and other writing.