Before Winter, and Then...

Before Winter, and Then...

…it seemed to me that there need not be

relic, remnant, margin, residue, memento,

bequest, memory, thought, track, or trace,

if only the darkness could be perfect

and permanent. 

                                  Marilynne Robinson

                                                Housekeeping

This is the way it works for her:

first the seed and then the sowing of the seed:

                the split husk and then the shove

                up through peat  (or vermiculite

                if it’s rumored to come on dry)

                and the vines reach sky-

                ward if they’ve been given a climb

                or scutt among the turned up

                stones and last year’s fish bones

                and if they've been trained to lean
                against the pole--

               

                and up they go and out no matter the press

                of the sky or choke of the root. 

And she’s among them every day, a nurse between

the beds, an ear for each new plume

                and a pocket notebook to keep it

                and a sharp pencil to mark all the agree

                or disagreements.  And once summer

                has wrung out it’s wardrobe on the neck

                of everyone, what’s got plump or even not

                with blush or glow will come undone

                like pins in the bun at the base of her

                scapula after the dance: it’s all kept

                tense until that first finger then two up

                through into the dark to loose the teased

               

security and one by one the locks fall…it’s like this:

come early or late, Autumn is the rush of it

                all: the plums and wheelbarrows

    in another country are her apples

    and bushel baskets and ladders she’ll climb

    into, a canopy of finding and each to her cheek

    she’ll ease into a linen bag and to descend

    two rungs at a time and walk a mile and a mile

    and a mile in her kitchen between sink

    and knife and paring, pot and water

and simmering to put it all up.  It makes me

wonder:

                under the surface of a winter lake, when in spring

                the green is its own mud brown beneath, and through

                the next three seasonS the surface can only show

                the sky the high track of everything passing by

                while the bottom settles it once and for all, a thick

                grip only it can need come winter because all its top-

                side green is decay, so to save it the lake, from the edges

                in, begins its own slow closing, a cold cold colder still

                than closing until the whole surface is snow and what’s frozen

                beneath it, and I imagine, it’s here that I see how a soul

                floats in a body without getting completely free. 

                It’s like a season of three: the growing up and out

                of the dark the climb and creep, the reach of a hand

                and then to save it all from that decay the madness of

                                sugar

                salt

                                vinegar

                pickle

               

                all ladled after their grate and slice their marriage

                into the glass row of winter infantry and the boil

                to seal them shut to cap them and seal them, their

                briny life stilled in their light.  Isn’t it like this

                in the winter lake?  Isn’t it like this in the living

                body?  Something of irreplaceable value sealed

                shut?  And shelf after shelf of labor to see?  And freezing

                February morning, the reach for it, the tap

                on the seal, to see it stayed, and then, decision made,

                the sweet under the rubber pry, the ssssssspt!

                Free!