On New Year's Eve we saw this owl sunning out of the wind deep in the tangle of a coulee draw. By the way it kept looking down, I'm guessing a cottontail did not see 2020.
I thought about the owl as the day went on and the sun set on the steep slope of my doings. Branches, trippers, knee-deep snow, deer trails vanishing in near impenetrable bush, a pulling of coyote fur stuck to the hawthorn. What to make of this many-textured mess?
With an hour and a half left in the decade I started tapping out a poem, turning again to the sonnet form, a kind of coulee itself. This is what I wrote:
Who would end a decade writing a poem
about writing a poem about writing
for years with no real clue about what poems
do when poets aren't looking? They're staying
about writing a poem about writing
for years with no real clue about what poems
do when poets aren't looking? They're staying
home I suppose, playing bored. Games ha ha
See what I did there? says the poem before
I can shut it up. There should be some law
against this kind of time wasting. Hardcore
See what I did there? says the poem before
I can shut it up. There should be some law
against this kind of time wasting. Hardcore
poets don't let poems win, do they? Maybe
try harder, says the poem. Be more patient
and stop with the clunky rhymes! 2020
calls for a visionary approach. Slant
try harder, says the poem. Be more patient
and stop with the clunky rhymes! 2020
calls for a visionary approach. Slant
the pen a little more and tell the folks
the owl too doesn't think much of this joke.
the owl too doesn't think much of this joke.
It's not great by any means, but the journey was. It felt good to push through to the end.
