Disintegrating a forest’s edge in a flurry of silence,
The nudging ache that waits forever.
And I knew your latest sorrow,
Like the winter twilight in your eyes, always
Tinctured by stars and snow.
Setting your hopes on a white Christmas,
You put a quiet faith in the world’s poor weather,
And stood to hear nervous cattails
Tapping at the river’s crusted edge—
There, you scanned the overcast skies with eyes
Dark, damp, beautiful as a forest floor—
Always an inch away from drowning in joy.
Uncle Paul’s Pear Tree
Uncle Paul played the hunter each Christmas –
Out among the frozen hills with gun in hand,
“It takes more than blood-thirst to hunt, I guess,”
He’d say. “You have to know what’s on your land.”
He’d come back, a bird in bag and listless
To tell a tale. He’d fumble words in his head,
Then begin: “Today was miraculous…”
He’d wandered around the land of the dead
With light snow from last night as the world’s pall.
He’d heard a crow sing for mercy on the ridge,
And in an old pear tree he’d found his soul.
“Like Saul for David, I chased that partridge…
That pear tree always drops an early fruit,
Yet each year it gives me a bird to shoot.”
Joseph O’Brien
Joseph O’Brien is the poetry editor for the San Diego Reader.
Sponsored
Sponsored
The latest copy of the Reader
Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.
Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.