good-bye, & keep cold

this saying good-bye on the edge of the dark 

& cold to an orchard so young in the bark
reminds me of all that can happen to harm
an orchard away at the end of the farm
all winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
i don't want it girdled by rabbit & mouse,
i don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
by deer, & i don't want it budded by grouse.
(if certain it wouldn't be idle to call

i'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
& warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

i don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(we made it secure against being, i hope,
by setting it out on a northerly slope.)

no orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
but one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
"how often already you've had to be told,

keep cold, young orchard. good-bye and keep cold.
dread fifty above more than fifty below."

i have to be gone for a season or so.

my business awhile is with different trees,
less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,
& such as is done to their wood with an axe--
maples & birches & tamaracks.

i wish i could promise to lie in the night

& think of an orchard's arboreal plight
when slowly (& nobody comes with a light)

its heart sinks lower under the sod.
but something has to be left to God. 

robert frost

self-loathing?

i loathe the sounds of my own voice—
the talking in my head
just the way the thoughts build up,
the way they form & bend

i loathe the beatings of my heart—
a shallow torrent of devastation & tears
i loathe the way that i can't feel
enough to conquer petty fears

i loathe the way my face looks
looking back at me
...just the way my eyes can't find
the riddle or the rhyme

i loathe the way i feel inside—
a constant, crashing tide
just a vacant waif of coal
where once must have been a soul

dim & dull

the shadows in mirrors linger of late

gnawing at fragmented glimmers of faces in slate

reflection's a'morphing towards shadowy blur

dimm-ed bulbs grown less bright toward a tongued, bleary slur

where shall we wander for a sharper sight

or traverse away of shadow in hunt of terse light?

i cannot say, for the ways that i look are all morphed & lit dim

grey bars my way like a cloak over sun's lit-pithy, unnumbered whims

there is One you could ask to unburden your sights so drenched in plight

you could bend on a knee to offer up that etched in your soul's hardy, alien height

but first be wary of the road taken & not
'cause all roads bare a tall toll when sought
by way of a dim & dull twilit night