by Meg Smith

Larry of the Winter Song
in memory of Lawrence Carradini

December reaches with skeleton fingers —
white and dirty, falling from the boardwalk
to the brook. What is the waning sun, but Larry,
snowy in his ash — a heart, a voice, a brain
so fine, with jazz and poetry only a broken heart can know.
How did it happen, then — that a chain of mountaineers —
heart, bone, brain, kidney, liver, and blood —
all fell from this rocky cliff of our being?
Larry, I would keep you if I could, in the strength
of your muscle, and mind — but I know
I am falling toward you, every day, as daylight
grows less and less.
There was once a Larry, one toe nudging a hole
through a baby shoe, stomping down a hall,
posture perfect. Growing from a child’s bones
to the man who sang, cried and danced.
This is our child of bones, falling through
the net of our fingers. This, our Holy Family,
clings together, singing, as we fall
through the lap of stars.

by Carol Hamilton

Stages
“. . . by August the birds are practically silent.”
Lisa Mueller

Until this year,
my lovelorn mockingbird
clattered through his store
of stolen songs, desperate,
both day and night, seeking
a discerning female
talent scout.
This year his songs stopped
and the waterfall green
of the overgrown bush
beneath his microphonic branch
no longer sings in white blossoms
but speaks in just
chitters and chatters.
No more call for the mad music
of desire. They are busy
grubbing out grubs, occupied
and sated exhausted by abundance,
not sure if they are ready
more obsessed than ever,
like oxygen–starved climbers
nearing the summit.

by Carol Hamilton

He said it was like
a trial run for the crematorium,
his Bach–filled slide
into the tunnel of magnets
and clunks and thumps
and thoughts
of a metal tombscape
I recited memorized poetry
and enjoyed the rest
The tube employs many
terrifies a few
saves some loses some
chugs in and out day by day
another phase in time
so short set in space
and so so long
for us here in Whoville
as we are ordered and try hard
to stay still for just a little while

by Elizabeth Crowell

The dogs pull to answer every creature,
bunnies, happy in the grass, squirrels
scooting up the ragged bark of trees,
the occasional two–legged being
sitting alone on a wooden porch,
head cocked up towards the sky,
humming with the whirly voiced crickets.

When the dogs stop, the leashes go slack.
A coyote and its streetlight–stretched shadow
stand in the middle of the street.
The pointed ears give him away.
She seems to be in a kind of agony,
bloodless, statue–still, chin raised.

She draws the masked folk from their houses,
who venture onto their lawns,
as if they have been islanded.
They know what suffering is,
this creature out of habitat, not herself,
nor can she be other, huffing and bowing.

Before anything can be done,
she slaps her raw paws on the pavement,
back into the swamp behind the houses,
her brown body gone
into tall grasses and thin weather.
The people talk about it for quite some time
before turning back inside.