Anti-Cycle for the New Year

(i)

Dark days,

thin snow on the roofs

graying, he described me

too long a mother:

no cycle

of return to

before that

(ii)

Light snow on the airfield

—take it lightly

the great engines grind

lift my sons off

our common ground

in a long curve

opening

(iii)

Poets praise motherhood

especially

if they are fathers

and move on to

less burdened women

no new start for me;

only the old

effort to juggle loss

against

the continual gift

wrapped in tissue

that gets thrown away

(iv)

I strip the tree whose little lights

the shivering tinsel multiplied—

hopes, joys

When I was a child I thought I’d die

after Christmas. I thought rightly:

nothing ahead but comedown

I lit a tree for my sons, who fly

east, who will wing back my way,

but it’s not my symbol

this cut convention drying in a corner,

seduction clung to—

now I lean

towards plain day. I stand

at its uncurtained window

(v)

Pity these cycles

beginning again:

the woman betrayed by lovers

will once more encounter brutes;

connoisseurs who find little to suit

their tastes will find less;

the writer of radical protest

will find the middle class more obtuse;

the taciturn poet at parties

will find the girls mute—

all will come beg me to tell them

they’re right because they are wronged

and my cycle starts. I’ll be drawn

into murmuring sympathy—yes,

I support your plausible lie:

external forces exist

and are vicious—

again I’ll be drawn

into failing to say what I know

what I constantly say to myself

as a charm against panic

the world’s selfmade

observe! observe!

(vi)

The long curve of the year

empties

We’re out of bread:

must get more

at the I.G.A.

—they’re out of our brand

and the price is higher

Supplies come through

on odd timetables

We rotate on a bent

axle-tree

—thus the Sahara

once a polar icecap

you can see the bend itself

on the non-stop jet

to California

the mind in its long passage

over the winter Rockies

its momentary lights

a pattern

on the night airfield:

gray snow

going back to water