John Coltrane “Lush Life” for Julie

Just that bit of graphite shine now
smudge fog grey.

I know I sometimes write
the same poems over and over:
this chair, this staring down Vincent Street
winter waiting
for the unexpected days
(a little sun along with softening)
that say Open a window
at least until dusk solidifies
and what’s been evaporating
turns what’s new exposed
thaw mist cold.

The stock has for hours slow reduced
thicker thicker
with schmaltz savor
and whatever else seep falls
from bones.

A brushed cymbal purity of steam
the sluggish churn
and chicken grease on my hands:

on the tongs I use to remove skin
that finally has melted mostly away:
the thinnest cloth of flesh
cooked to shapelessness.

Coltrane plays streetlamp slow sultry
like green promise drizzle
the comfort of simmering.

I strain cartilage and gristle bits
bay leaves and peppercorns

pull the bones like a blanched prophecy

so I can reduce the broth again: again.

I will let it sit cool
a couple of hours:
let the fat rise and harden
then I’ll crack it like thin lake ice
stepped on, ridden on
breaking under its own weight:

I’ll lift it off in as few pieces as possible.

I want you to come home
to the smell of simple bread bake.

I want you to come home
to crust tear, to butter melt
to ladle and spoon clatter

to Coltrane changing tempos
like our loose striding
next spring’s petrichor
next spring’s warmth of reopening.

I want you to come home:
to be amazed by the plasma
the breathable broth air.

A bit of bleaching brightness

A bit of bleaching brightness
albatross grey
the almost end of the snow sky
despite some flurries still:

the all morning back and forth
scrape of snow plows
passing the house:
Martin Avenue’s tarmac sloppy
and tire track striped.

Three crows up to their bellies
in snow under the feeder
bury their beaks, their whole heads
toss puffs of white like auras:

their black backs and tailfeathers:
the only things I see
as they search for something
I’m not sure of:

husks and dead grass
and talon scratch soil
scattered across the snow:

three bodies becoming one slab
of onyx stone poking out
of the drift and grit blow.

They’ve been at it most of the morning
a delinquency of gathering and flying away
gathering again.
(They fly away just as I say this.)

Violet subtle:    this light:
but the cold like a crow’s beak
is the magnificent emptiness of winter:
how breathing labors and labors
like lugging limestone.

Even later when I deep calf trudge
to fill the feeders
even when I see what’s left in the pit
of their digging and digging

I won’t know.

Is this how we must measure January?

Sometimes:    in shades and highlights of grey:
barely shadows barely touching
snow and cement:
nothing that follows us:
nothing we track as we move
from closed space to closed space.

Sometimes:    a ruckus of small birds
scattering from below the feeder
almostspring nowhere close:
this is all the language
of late afternoon corners
and angles and hard surfaces.

Sometimes by what’s hidden.

Always:    by how our hands and toes numb ache.
(No matter how many layers we put on
our fingers, our feet distant glare.)

Sometimes: like today:
cold bright (that’s how it works)
by the length of blue stretching sandsmooth
off the dying spruce
across the almost dusk snow

the only murk
out the back window lurking
under the tangle of the cedars
and even that’s bright.

Why does the freight train whistle
from beyond the city count today
as a sound from nature?

Look how four o’clock high
the chemical sun burning the blue cold is.

Sometimes: we calculate the small hope
of the later dusks
of the barely later each day sunsets.