MOANING, WHEEZING
the overblown organ of winter wind
shivers the glittering crust on the field
and gratitude is spare in the house
as fresh air. Our throats croaking
in the wood stove’s heat, the steaming
kettle an affectation. So, we exist,
a couple very like the first, oldest of all
at birth. It’s that complex, so what
have we to do with our slaked selves,
that heated and throbbed, wet between the legs,
with the past that seems so close ahead of us?
We sniff like the dog for some shy green waft
to scent the sighs beneath the door, to tint
the window sills of desiccated spruce.
_____________
Paul Nelson
Review by Massimiliano Nastri
As a one-poem poet published here, one of the best.
Sonnet-like control of how sound and images dance as guests at a marriage reception: o-ver-blOn O-rgan ofwinterwind sh-ivers cru-st gr-atitude spear fresh air throats stove steaming. Hypnotic. The story is an accompaniment to the awareness of getting old, getting there together. I must confess I envy the simplicity of means – no epigraph, no showing off Greek literature – and the moral not restlessness but acceptance not resignation. The last line of Memoires d’Hadrien (I know, one has one’s own shrines) says something along the line: we have to enter death with open eyes. Stoicism but not dryness.