Walking down
into the morning light
down stairs
from clouds, stars, dreams.
It’s all down here.
Waiting.
Significant.
Cardinal chimes from the brown vine.
Crabapple blossoms at the kitchen window.
Crows in flight over wires.
Sirens. Rain.
Madmen measuring death
like jacket sleeves.
Copyright Kay Winter
We met when we were uncertain weather
and unfound lucky pennies.
An uncertain season
of rain through sun,
and smooth gray clouds lingering
low in the sky.
I did one certain thing.
I left you behind.
You, not strong enough for what was coming.
(Or was it me, sparing myself
the trouble of you.)
The weather this winter
blows sleet
over the bare trees of the park
I see from my window
(my only).
Years ago, before I knew you,
before I had to think of you,
I spent a year of Novembers
waiting in that park,
reading The House of Seven Gables
by streetlight,
while crows circled high in the pale air.
Now, from this window,
(my only)
I see the same crows,
settling in the dark empty windows
of the chapel across the green.
I leave the window open
to let the sound of the wind
drown out the drip of time.
I ask this:
When my crow comes
and settles on the sill
and speaks my bright simple name,
let me step over,
from do, to having done, to being over it.
Copyright Kay Winter
odhranwrites 