Poem 40

See Poem 37 for an explanation as to what's going on here.

from Fulton’s Guide to Unofficial Seasons

Impromptu spring,
better known as forgizia,
includes but is not limited to:
Grass still green in late August.
A bare pond bed alive
with plants hugging the muck
like fog.
Closing windows at night.
A sense of buds opening
even under old leaves.
Rain.
Four days of staying inside,
reading, without guilt
for not visiting the lake.

Poem 39

See Poem 37 for an explanation as to what's going on here.

from Fulton’s Guide to Unofficial Seasons


Winter’s shrug,
sometimes known as
beige spring,
occurs around the last of Februrary
and the first greening of March.
Rituals mark this time
of now-useless precautions.
In one instance
Dakota Schultz,
patient for nothing specific,
kicks traction gravel around
a high school parking lot.
It's Tuesday morning.
Behind the fence
the grass lies flat
and yellow in fields,
and the sky shares its
blue when it sees fit.
On these days
he may notice
white clouds in the sky
behind the branches of a tree.
Mr. Schultz should not be alarmed
if these turn out to be blossoms,
eager for the emerging warmth.

Poem 38

See the previous post for an explanation as to what's going on here.

from Fulton’s Guide to Unofficial Seasons

Citarania

In some northern states
this hard-to-define season
lasts only the few hours
when a child
can stand and watch
snowflakes buzz
through the coating of glow
around street lamps.
Often lost among the rubble of winter,
this season was discovered
by archeologists excavating
Bronze Age snow forts
and using brushes
to dust the jaws and femurs
of snowmen buried in volcanic ash.
Further research shows
the ancient Fydyrrnians
believed that the frost lords,
who hated school,
rewarded prayerful children
with a lavish citarania.

The modern child, dressed in gray
snowpants and green coat,
should breath a sigh of relief;
good news will emerge
tomorrow when he sifts through
AM static to find stations
indicating cancellation.

Poem 37

I had a recent revelation about the arbitrariness of seasons recently. It wasn't anything major that caused this, but it occurred to me that there's nothing significant about the four seasons in and of themselves. Sure, on some days we have more light or dark than any other time of the year, or we are more likely to have temperatures in the 90's than the 20's, and as significance junkies we like to think these are important divisions of the year. Discrepancies, however, abound. I know one person who checks this blog lives in the Southern Hemisphere where the seasons are different. She does not experience seasons the way I do, and I think all of us experience "personal" seasons of one kind or another.

I intend to post five poems about such obscure seasons this week. Please stay tuned.

from Fulton’s Guide to Unofficial Seasons

False Autumn
marks the onset of premature
nostalgia fits,
yanked out like sweaters
from closets for a morning chill.
At such a time,
when few yellow leaves at the tips
of branches
surprise the end of a rainy August,
Sue Xiong realizes the four months
before Christmas.
She would be wise
to keep the rake in the garage.
Even as one leaf scratches
the sidewalk on a breezy jaunt,
millions dangle and flutter,
demanding further sunshine.

Poem 36

I try to avoid writing cutesy poems, but this one comes as a special request. When I was in late elementary school, one of my friends had a miniature dachshund named Hotdog. The name could have been more original, but the dog was one of the most endearing creatures I've ever encountered. She acted like you were doing her a tremendous favor just by showing up to hang out with your friend. I remembered this dog fondly on Saturday, how warm she was, and my girlfriend suggested I write a poem about it. This one is not about my friend or me. I made it up.

As I wrote this I realized that with the demise of the VCR many of us will lack a glowing green clock in our living rooms. It was sort of a lame joke that no one knew how to set theirs, but if a person took some time, it wasn't such a chore to do. Perhaps DVD/VCR combos still have this feature, but for how long?

Wiener Dog

A key turning the deadbolt
and two wet steps later
he crouches down on hardwood
with the door hanging
open a crack.
The boy looks
like he is gathering
a flock of sparrows.
He cradles 11 pounds
of twittering body, tongue,
ears, tail: a dachshund
who has gathered winter
light into her own
bloom of heat on the carpet
by the bay window
all afternoon.

She perched her front paws
on the sill when the junior high bus
stopped up the street
and aimed her arrow body.
To shoot her head
into the boy’s open coat
like he’s stealing clay
that can’t hold its shape.
He laughs from the tickling nose
and glances to the VCR’s clock;
it will be 24 minutes
before he will share this warm
skittering with his brother.
Seventh grade,
even with locker rooms
of trouble,
means extra afternoon
with the snow melting off
boughs outside and the sound
of two sets of lungs.

Poem 35

I started this poem based on houses in older neighborhoods in Spokane and Bellingham as well as my experiences growing up around retired people. Belonging to a church when, whatever I believe now, gave me many opportunities to connect with older people and watch them age and sometimes deteriorate (sometimes die less-expectedly). It was originally just a poem about the houses themselves until I noticed a sign for an assisted living community a few weeks back. I like the idea of assisted living (I think we all need more "assistance") but wanted to show how resistant to losing independence I think most of us are.
Many of these details come directly from my grandmother's experience, but, as usual, the poem is not autobiographical. "A person" is a phrase I've heard people in her generation use to refer to themselves. I like it

Assisted Living

The old houses know how to wait.
Their rattling,
thin windows, driveway cracks
listen to the fidgeting leaves
and sprinklers wetting
close-mowed lawns.
Men with veins,
calluses, and bent nails
prune shrubs and patch concrete.
The old men, the old women
fight with dirt, with sag
and rain.
Shaking fingers smooth quilts
and store away plates.
Routines blossom in these times:
a closed linen closet at 3,
a microwave hum at 6.
a daughter’s tired child at 8.
With arms and legs borrowed
from ancestors, the grandparents
wind down like music boxes,
keeping up with vitamins,
physical therapy.
They line up prescription bottles
and do alright for themselves,
even when a husband passes away.

But when the houses get too large
and the beige grass
overpowers the green,
and the grandson hauls
old firewood from the porch,
a person has to call someone
to put away towels
and seed the iced walk to the garage
with carefully de-iced steps.
The walk to the bathroom
begins to wind like a trail
and the basement,
it may as well be China
because she can’t get there.
Her phone grows legs and arms,
strong from bank account meals,
to shovel, haul, and clean.
A person even moves the phone
next to her chair in the living room
so she doesn’t have to go far
when it rings.
And after she changes the channel
when a commercial about
assisted living comes on during the news,
she can call her grandson
to ask what his girlfriend does for a living.

At the edge of town
on curved suburb drives
complexes beckon
with elevator song and the smell
of meals without microwave trays.
A knock at the door brings
bathing and linen services,
and community gardens
don’t cry out for weeding.
Their shuttle buses,
decaled with “Manor”, “Village,”
“Retreat” run daily to malls
and doctors’ offices.
But a person can still drive
and she has a daughter
who can get to the store.
It will be a few years
before she sits by the window
and looks four floors down
and three miles West
to the house where she planted irises
and took the basement stairs
two at a time, carrying
home-canned peaches
for a grandchild’s desert.