The Old Dream of Snakes

You want quiet but the dog snores. And moves a lot in the night? Well, something is stirring and it's not just the old dream of snakes. It's okay. I cried hard remembering dead horses but a little before three a.m. the stars own a wild blue light you only see a few times after childhood. It is okay. A manageable hunger never hurt anyone. I remember Mr. Tower describing death as "over the bourn" and in that moment becoming a linguist. Be agile but bold, too. All trails take you somewhere is my implicit faith, and also you didn't make all trails. Saturday I bought a new mug for my coffee (the old one busted while Sophia and I were loading the truck). The woman who made it - a librarian with admirable taste in graphic novels - said "it's a flower vase" as I studied it and I said to her "not anymore" before plunking down my last pair of tens. Form is use, right? In poetry or pottery both. On the other hand, walking in the cold, I do wonder about the extremities. Frost is Persephone's mother's wedding dress cast aside in the frantic search. Something knocks in the woods and the dog abruptly turns, disappearing, leaving me alone with a buck who stepped wrong in the dark. Compose your own epitaph, Old Scratch! I smile a little back on the porch, wind blowing dead leaves over my feet and the lawn and Route 112 in the distance. You learn what you have to give and then you give it. The rest is a story, a good one more or less, but nearly ended now, and thank Christ too.