Gray Poem

Many years ago, we went to the zoo in Traverse City with my daughter, 

grandsons and their Aunt Dorothy. They had some great river otters, splashing and playing!

But what captured my attention the most was this lynx that circled and circled his enclosure.

He knew he didn't belong there and so did I. There was such beauty to his wildness 

and his sharply fur-tipped ears. Oh, lynx, I never saw a wild one, only you!

GRAY POEM

1

Another gray morning

in this month of valley fog.

Everything seems old, little threads and roots

sucking a cold sea.

When I look into it, the mirror

cups my face in its silver hands.

I hear my grandmother whispering 

beneath her shawl---

Cloth of forgetfulness

Skull of the one night

Shag of wisdom

White grass of misery

In the yards, our children

are turning into clouds.

2

There are times when I shut my eyes

I stand in a place

from which journeys are forever beginning---

in the distance

a small feather of smoke, a haze

where the earth falls off,

                                                                     (parts 1 and 2 of a four part poem)

Peter Everwine

Collecting the Animals, Carnegie Mellon, 1999, page 62.

I love the motion of mind in this poem. 

We are compelled to follow, even in strange directions.

I think the poem goes well with the wildness, and even with the grayness, of the lynx, 

my lynx of memory. My memory thread of wildness.