Forty Degrees

Forty Degrees, Light Wind

              If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

               —“Ode to the West Wind,” Percy Bysse Shelley

Our January thaw began December first,

still going strong, no end in sight.

What happens to spring if winter doesn’t

come?  Does she wait one more year

or give way to summer now, tempting us

to plant despite the threat of frost?

We don’t need to answer here.  Two more days

the Ground Hog will let us know.

What better weather vane than that?

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                      31 January 2012  

Pay the Piper

Pay the Piper, Let the Dance Go on.

I woke this morning and knew I would not die

a pauper, nor even rich.  Somewhere

in between, depending which day

my check gets deposited next month.

It’s January.  I still have time to read

about December/May romance.

An old story, if true, but not for me. 

I married an October bride I met

in March, speechless after two years

in Mexico.  Stars in my eyes no northern

lights could dim.  Bright at eighty as that

first day I knew this feeling would not end.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                         30 January 2012  

Small Things

For Small Things

I don’t know how many white eggs

or brown the goose laid that gave her down

to fill my parka and keep me warm.

But I’m grateful.

Sometimes a leaf falls when I am

not the least bit lonely, a reminder

that someday . . . someday.

And I’m grateful.

Under snow the ring I lost stays

bright with the hope for spring.  

A seed catalog came in the mail today.

I’m grateful.

It gives me a garden to plan

while the last log burns to ash—

a warm hearth to remember home,

to remember home.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        28 January 2012

Pardon My French

Pardon my French

I don’t know an awful lot,

but on the side of the box

of a casserole dish—itself

a French word—I see the word cocotte.

That sounds good until I look

it up.  Buried in seventeen definitions

I find “a shallow baking dish.”

Everything else is too unsavory

for a Mormon poet, desperate

each day to write, call it

calaesthetics if you like, and so

(pardon my fractured French)

I’d best pick something

else more à propos.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            27 January 2012

its so easy

its so easy

               poetry is being, not doing

                                    —e.  e. cummings

when I hear a bell

its so far off I don’t know

whether to box or

pray look at my hands

no gloves no grass stains no ring

to catch no merry

go round just write three

lines at a time five seven

five each syllable

counts one by one at

seventeen start again and

so on until you

lose track and then

your poem is gone

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        26 January 2012

An Old Story

An Old Story

On the third day stars came to sing.

The sun and moon said o.k., just

keep your own place in the sky.

Then trees.  The leopard licked his spots

in shade, ready to spring.

At the top of the pine a jay hopped

to the next branch.  This list goes on

and on.  An old story, but true.

We have no better way to explain

“sun, moon, stars, rain”—even the lights

last night in the north, blue, green.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        25 January 2012

Not Yet

Not Yet

                    Art is at first nothing, then something.

                                                        —William Stafford

              

A blank page, blank mind,

then something made in Japan—

a blossom, a bell.

Or if it’s winter,

a Solitaire’s rusty song

swings the gate open.

Snow falls.  Six stars find

their way through fog.  When the rain

stops, a prism arcs

its promise across

the sky:  this year will not be

the last, not yet, but

later everyone

will join the stars, and every

tree will start to sing.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        24 January 2012

Furniture

Furniture

To sand and refinish the floor

we moved everything out of the dining

room, storing it on the perimeter,

a new maze I negotiate at night

trying not to stub a toe.

Stubbing is serious business for me

ever since I gave up toenails for aesthetic,

if not salutary, reasons.  A poor excuse,

but the best I can come up with

at eighty-two—no end in sight.

Now that the floor and my toes

are cured we’ll move the furniture back

tomorrow with a crew of children,

grandchildren, since I’m deemed unfit

to lift much more than my arm.  

I can barely lift my thoughts beyond

this strait and crooked path on my way

to the guest bathroom hoping not to wake

the downstairs sleepers with a flush

and flourish that could interrupt their dreams.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        23 January 2012

What Happens

What Happens?

Not all of the wolves are gray.

Some are invisible.  They howl

just at night when you are

almost asleep.  You take a deep

breath, maybe your last, let it

out slow.  In your chest you first

feel, then hear their sound, soft

and low.  Do you dare take another? 

What happens when the wolves

are gone, and you are left

with only your thoughts, no sound,

no wind, maybe a face

in the rain, alone?

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            21 January 2012          

Once More Around the Block

Once More Around the Block

The truth is this morning

I don’t want to write.

There is bread to be made

not the living wage kind—

I’m retired—but bread

that melts butter under

the knife, drips down honey

on fingers you can’t lick clean.

The recipe is simple:

flour, brown sugar, yeast,

salt, oil in hot water.  Knead.

Let it rise.  Heat the oven

to 350 degrees. 

An hour later fresh loaves

steam on the cutting board.  

Slice thick and . . .

Man may not live by bread alone,

but he’ll starve if all he gets

is one more dead dog poem.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        20 January 2012  

Crossbills

Crossbills

                                    If I could be like Wallace Stevens

                                                the octopus would be my model.

                                   —William Stafford

I searched a long time for octopus,

and found only one discarded poem.

But then, time is only temporary, right?  

So what’s the big deal? 

Each morning the Octopus Man

comes to the beach at Veracruz

with his rusty bike and a daughter  

to guard it while he wades to the edge

of the tide with curved hook and keen eye.

When I ordered Caldo de Mariscos

I learned the more you chew octopus

the bigger it grows.  Maybe

Wallace knew that when he wrote

about blackbirds and rusty crows,

the old sun gone, deep January, a hard

sky—“Bad is final in this light,”

Here at Honeybrook January blows

away, no possum, no crows,

but crossbills come to pluck seeds

from my feeder in the afternoon.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        19 January 2012

                                      

Souvenir

Souvenir

When we inherited Moses, his staff

was gone.  No way to part the sea.  But we

hang on to him, anyway.  Let some child

or grandchild sift the residue we leave.

Let him or her decide who gets Moses

or who gets to send him to the thrift shop

to join the detritus of others who

never saw the Holy Land nor brought back

olive souvenirs carved perhaps from trees

that filled the garden at Gethsemane.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       18 January 2012  

Out Here

Out Here

I said to my shape, “Shape up!”

did three push ups, four knee

bends, five sit ups with toes

locked under the edge of the low

table in front of my Lazy Boy

recliner that holds my books

I hope someday to read.

I even walk down our lane

unless it snows or rains.  Or if

I forget and day wanes into dark.  

It’s not safe then where rumor

has it a cougar was spotted last

week after the neighbor’s poodle

(or was it a pug?) turned up missing

and hasn’t since been seen.

It’s a great life we live out here

in the cottonwoods.  Except in June

when cotton cloaks the land and every

seventeen years incessant cicadas sing.  

Well, it’s not exactly song, more like

a buzz or thrum.  You can tell

the Fahrenheit by counting thrums

for fifteen seconds then adding thirty-seven,

or is it thirty-five?  

You can look it up next time

you Google on the Internet.  

You can even find your long

lost love at Harmony dot com. 

But that’s nothing to me.

My love sleeps snug beside

me or alone when I get up

to shape my shape, or if the sky

is clear enough to write this poem.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        17 January 2012  

Wolverine Ridge

Wolverine Ridge

From Wolverine

Ridge we tame the wind with long

blades sweeping clean.

Left over Christmas

lights blink red warnings to birds

and planes:  Stay clear!    

Who cares if it costs

more, is unreliable?  

It’s green.  Isn’t that 

enough?  This is an 

election year.  Let owls fend 

for themselves. They don’t 

vote, anyway.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            16 January 2012

                                      

Survival Class

                       

 

  

      

       Survival Class

For a month each day we saw red—

morning and night in the sky—the rest

of the time in rocks, sheer canyon walls,

and a few blossoms where thorns

pricked our skin. 

Blood dries fast in the desert sun.  

Wrens sang, but the sand, pure, fine—

red as everything else—filled our boots

and the creases where sweat ran down

faces and arms. 

When we got back to the world we had

known, nothing was the same after that

Utah month of red where we survived

with new found friends we never saw again

except in dreams.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       14 January 2012

From My Condo . . .

From My Condo on the 23rd Floor

When I am old and no one listens,

I will count all the beats of my heart.  Each one

has a story to tell—don’t  forget.  Someone

will say,  “Remember the grackle

who sang to the sun each morning

in Veracruz and the juggler with three

oranges, the cars backed up in the street

to watch?”  The old man in the cart

blinks twice.  His horse turns to the right.

José is leaving for work.  His children

wake from dreams too late to say good-bye

to their father, too late to say they love him.

They wake from dreams too late

to say good-bye.  José is leaving for work.

The children blink twice, and the old horse        

turns down the right street to watch.                                               

The man sells his three oranges,

while backed up cars honk at the juggler

of Veracruz who sings to the sun

on the wall.  Someone says, “Don't forget—

the grackle has a story to tell.”  I will count

all the beats of my heart, each one,

when I am old and no one listens.

                                    --Donnell Hunter

 Published in Perspectives  BYU-Idaho Spring 2009

Overdrawn

Overdrawn

I want to redraw what I withdrew,

to square accounts with Erato,

that poetic muse of cross words

who hides when I need her most.

You know, when it’s early morning

and as poet in residue

I’m supposed to write.

Well, today I’m overdrawn.  I throw

back the counterpane to January

dark and half a waning moon. 

My wolves lick their chops while

I make ablutions.  My barked shin

howls in pain.  There will be a scar

which heals slow at my age.

How do I assuage my acedia,

my ennui, my monkish habit

no nun would approve beneath

cowl and stoic face when she boards

the Missoula bus for the long ride

to Cincinnati where friends and family are? 

This long question leaps from memory. 

Why do blue nuns ride alone only

when they’re going home?  Tell me,

Madeline, if you know, why,

when the singing ends, Wallace turns

at Key West and cashes in his policy

to write poems of ghostly demarcations? 

He walks home in iambic pentameter,

revives the overdrawn account

of blank verse, while those around him

wait in waist coats for the next

black bird to fly out of sight

and mark the edge of art and poetry.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       12 January 2012           

Counterpane

Counterpane

Unable to die I’ve become

invisible.  No one listens,

no one sees.  I could shout,

but all those echoes only make

my hearing aids buzz.

I could pontificate, but what’s

the use?  No one believes.

And if I should die and come back,

none of my friends would be left.

to answer the phone.

Buenos dias.  Adios.  What more needs

to be said?  Since no one listens

and I can’t die, I might just as well go

back to dreams and pull the covers

up over my head.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       11 January 2012

The Poem That Got Away

The Poem That Got Away

               I want to get lost whenever I write a poem.

                                             —William Stafford

Another reason

not to carry a cell phone—

too hard to get lost.

Should you find a poem,

that phone rings in your pocket.

Metaphors scatter

and hide.  I tried once

through briars and weeds, to hunt one

down—no metaphor

in its right mind would

leave a track behind.  You have

to surprise them, their

backs turned, the light dim,

just enough wind they can’t hear

you gasp with delight:

 “At last the very

poem I’ve been looking for—please

keep your lines in sight.”

                    —Donnell Hunter

                           10 January 2012        

Stafford also says when you have writer's block, just lower your standards.

           

Trapezoids

Trapezoids

When the grackle escaped the maze

of trapezoids, we began to suspect

the Mayas could be wrong despite

their calendars of stone.  The world

might not end this year after all.

The grackle paid no heed

with his yellow eye and great

tail sweeping the edge

of the Rio Coatzacualcos

where once a god disappeared

into the sea with a promise

to return.  The Aztecs believed.

They made way when the Spaniards

came with horses and swords.

They opened their houses and arms,

then learned too late Cortez was just a man.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        9 January 2012

News Item

News Item

“Ten young whooping cranes and the bird-like plane they think

  is their mother had flown more than halfway to their winter

  home in Florida when federal regulators stepped in.”

                              —Associated Press, 7 January 2012

It’s not foggy out tonight

but Whooping Cranes

have been grounded.  Even birds

need permission to fly. 

I’ve submitted myself in airports

to being x-rayed, patted down,

but this is the last strange straw. 

Who owns the sky? 

Will thunderstorms next

be permitted only on Thursdays

or tornados limited to unpopulated

areas from nine till five?

What about hurricanes?   

Already we give them names—

alternating  male and female

to be politically correct. 

How could we survive if some

out of step government didn’t

step into our lives (and the lives

of birds) to keep us safe from being

fools or over flown by fowls

whose pilot friend without proper

permit tries to help them learn

the right way home?

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       7 January 2012

The Sea

The Sea

The sense of smell, they say,

which I lost half my life ago,

is the most nostalgic sense of all.

I couldn’t smell a skunk

in a closet.  But we don’t

keep our skunks there, nor

skeletons as far as I know.                                          

One night when the pups barked

out back and, in my pajamas,

I went to investigate I saw

a plume of tail.  I towed the pups

out of reach, kenneled them

for the night.  What will

Nita say? when I get back

in bed, I wondered, if that

pole cat had already detonated

in the weeds.  It could be

a rude awakening.  But he

was a young skunk, like

the pups, neither knowing

what was expected of them yet.

When I read Banville’s

The Sea, with its olfactory

tour de force and its tugs

at memory, I hark back

to one morning I sat

on an Oahu shore, the trades

blew in against my face.                                             

The detritus was fresh and

pungent, like the plumeria lei

and the kiss from the girl who draped

it over my head at the airport

when we landed.  “Aloha,”

she said,  “Welcome to our Island,”

Paradise without any snakes.

And in the back of my mind

I can smell and still hear

the pounding of the sea.

                                                           

—Donnell Hunter

   5 January 2012

                       

We have Temple in the morning, so again I am posting this one night early.