SUBJECT>Re: Mornings With Ethan POSTER>Si mon EMAIL> DATE>1109788537 IP_ADDRESS>199.184.88.166 PREVIOUS>84114 NEXT> 84129 IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Thanks hnnh -- this was a late night effort -- me and a g&t or two. i slept two hours before having to rally the kids for school. so the poem wears my weaknesses. I posted an edit below, using some of your suggestions. I couldn't really get ride of the entire first stanza -- but i might given a little time. not sure what you were thinking about the spider at the end becoming more transparent. but maybe some sleep will help me understand.

now why don't you post your footnote poem over here?

si-mon

A lump of butter skitters across
the skillet. Ethan prefers his eggs
scrambled. How many mornings will we sit
in this kitchen spooning sunlight?
A spider descends from the ceiling,
down the invisible thread. Three times
we chase it heavenward.

Here’s to the leafy gossip, magnolia
faithful in green. They’re clearing the woods
behind our house to make room for more.
Each morning we try to ignore the rumble
that rattles our windows, this machinery
that enters our dreams. Trunks ribboned
in yellow. We know the screech owl’s days
are numbered. Who knows how many?
Not the brown-skinned workers who cruise by
in pick-up trucks. Their days are long
and end in cash, in beer runs, in the smile
of cashiers who do not understand them.
This earth plowed under is our common
denominator. The hawk, the heron.
Birds as metaphor. Yes, I know the gossip
of the dogwood is temporal. I press
against the bark and say the number three.

Once there was a time. A boy walked out
under unnamed stars, in a field
made muddy by walking. The mud
was still pure. And if he kept walking,
beyond the lights of patios,
house lights left on by old men, old women
unable to sleep, the lights of warehouses
stunning the dark, manned by skeleton crews,
parking lots lit for no good reason,
then it might be winter and snow might fly
up into the brightness there.

Ethan notes the loss of daylight.
He crosses the street with caution.
His hair seldom sits right. And the birds
behind the house sing early mornings.
Not the crows in a stand of trees.
I trust these birds will sing no matter.
That the spiders will drift into eternity.