All day the storm’s
been squeezing out the light,
a huge mist grows
and the wind comes up-
nothing to take the boards off
the house, but enough
to set us all on edge,
although these winds,
unlike the easterly winds
of the Mediterranean,
carry nothing but air.
Only a few gulls
climb the wind and swing
over the house-
the diving birds gone,
the herons that feed
at water’s edge gone,
and the ducks are sheltering
somewhere out of the storm.
I have the fire started,
a little broth on the stove,
and the house is closed
to the storm,
only its light
can reach us.
It picks up the white boats
in the bay and fires them
with a luminist’s white,
it ignites everything white
and as suddenly,
as the mist changes density,
is defused. The light enters
the afternoon and finds us
at work like this:
one is asleep
in an upstairs room,
another reads in the runway
where the view is only forest,
the more stable landscape
in a storm. She’s reading
about complete loss
after possessing everything.
It’s a story about injustice
and the right to extremes,
of something uncomplicated
like a pair of horses starved
by angry men,
the death of the hero
and the darkening the author sensed
in turn-of-the-century Europe.
So she’s reading on the cane couch,
her friend is preparing the evening meal
and I’m on my way out of the house
to walk awhile in the afternoon,
or what’s left of it.
We’ve lost something here:
a day of perfect light,
a little time in the sun
with the birds
at work, carrying out
their natural chores,
the flock of sails adrift
at another end of the bay.
But I’m not thinking of sunlight,
or the sailing boats,
or the horses of Michael Kohlhaas.
I could lie down
with my sleeping friend
and hold her as the storm
terrorizes the landscape,
sleep awhile next to her
and awake in the night
with the sound of rain
barely audible, tapping
the walls of the house.
I remain outside
in the rain and the darkening,
and look back at the house
where those close to me
are at work,
whatever it is.
The white, heavy column
of smoke rises
into the mist, and below,
at the smoke-base, the fire
gives to them its necessary heat.
I’ll stay here awhile longer
and return after dark, to share
the evening meal, the fire,
the small talk, our right to all this.
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