Omens of Winter

The sun sets now in wide orange bars.
Orion is hunting among the stars

above hilsides spotted brown and white
like fawns. Poems arrive as meteorites.

Collecting them, I try my best to impart
impulses, the morse code of the heart,

but I do not understand the vernacular
of fear that jostles me until art occurs,

or why, knowing you from afar
spurs hours of working myself into the stars.

Well, I do know, but I fight its common sense:
I try to stabilize us through eloquence.

It's an old story, better told than I tell,
how artists shape what hurts like hell

(usually love) into separate empires
of lust, tenderness, and lesser desires

we can control. I barely control this one:
I wish we could feel in unison.

I wish you'd shield me from the winds of shame
that whirl up fast and sting like blame.

Some days the world feels uninhabited
and the trees look dark as arrowheads.

I wish your well-tamed inferno were mine.
My heart spanks itself. I can hear it whine.

A stranger's fire, all flash and bone,
always seems to burn brighter than our own.


Diane Ackerman