Saturday, November 15, 2014

Winter comes, with heat


I’m just home from an icy drive
and the first arctic blast has frozen
the floor through the crawl space.
I sit in the big old robe
with socked and blanketed
feet on the ottoman.
My husband is working late.
In the corner, the wood stove
reaches for me with aromatic heat
as if I am the one craved.
On top, the last of the chicken soup,
that final glow of chili and garlic,
tomatoes deep and bright, flickering
onions, all velvet on my tongue now.
Inside, flashes of mystery—
red finger-snapping oak  
erupting instantly
from crusty ash, flames
beating at the window
with lust. And something
else I cannot fathom
about desire: my hands
cradling this bowl,
just right not too hot,
and splayed in the soup
two thigh bones and a knuckle,
surrendered for me, to me,
and my pleasure in this death.

25 comments:

  1. A lovely and apt evocation of the sensual delights of the season.
    " crusty ash, flames' ...slips beautifully off the tongue

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    1. Thank you, Elizabeth. This particular batch of oak is so well seasoned that it ignites instantly, and the embers left from the night before are impossibly perfect little cubes.

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  2. It is for just such moments, I would never be rid of my wood stove (s), beasts that they are. They complete a curious circle, fill and fulfill... aside from the obvious.

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    1. Steven, my husband and I discuss the possibility of going completely to wood stoves. A lot of work, but a way to stay fit as we age. And yes, an element of a full life, just as you say. Thank you.

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  3. now if you're not sitting right in the life sized pot of rilke's transformative brew, conversion being the enactment of desire, i don't know where you are! this kind of momentum, when actually seen (as you actually see it here) is nothing short of miraculous.

    but i'll tell you what gets me in this poem. what gets me is that in the beginning it seems as though you are not writing a poem at all, only recounting a situation, an event, albeit the most ordinary one it seems. and then you clobber us. it shifts when you admit your ignorance and then suddenly your hands upon your ordinary soup are so erotically tied into this world, a part of this momentum, this love making. the bones being "splayed" specifically drives me wild. and then the thigh bones, of course, but you don't give us what might be sexually be suspected, let's say "breasts", but you give us "knuckles", ruth. i could kiss you for this jarring. it is so important. every lowly piece is sexual, is alive, even in its death when it is a part of this great conversion. and nothing sits outside of this great conversion.

    and of course there's the fire and how it admits you, and the environment itself in flux through seasons.

    it is a quiet poem - at first.

    you use the word "lust" and while this is in fact what the poem is about, forgive me but i don't feel the word was needed to reveal what the body beneath it was, not this particular word. i think i begin to see something here i've not seen before, begin to see the movement of the movement beneath the words, as though the desire or erotic element of life could be seen without the words, as though it has a shadowy and thrusting body moving through your room. in order to share what is seen with others one must throw a sheet over it, a veil of vocabulary. the most illusory vocabulary has the most presence. isn't this peculiar, and isn't this the nature of poetry, to trick our mouths into saying the (unsayable) mystery in an indirect line?

    oh, and again, "surrendered for me". this nearly breaks my heart. i want to shout to cause everyone to pay attention to this in particular, "surrendered" for you! for me! i cry this moment, ruth, to recognize the truth in this, whether done for us in design, or done by the mere accident of all of us being, one thing is surrendered to another! my god, this takes my breath.

    it is a wonderful poem. i love it very much.

    xo
    erin

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    1. Erin, you do such honor to this little poem that I could take a bath in your words. Writing is a process of thinking for me, a way to get down to my heart, a way to touch what is here, what is not readily available to me in my mind. It takes many days to coax understanding, and to find words for what is here. I do think you are right on, that words just sort of catch the movement that is here, not creating it, but dipping a cup into it and bringing it to our mouths. It is discovery. Poems are so wonderful — reading or writing, both reveal — for the ways that comparing unlike things exposes unimagined realities. This poem wrote itself over a few days; I had absolutely no idea where it would end up.

      I agree about the word lust. I think the word could be replace with another and make it better, let the movement be powerful in itself.

      Thank you.

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  4. The thing is, Ruth, it's better because I can picture you sitting exactly there doing exactly that! But it does seem early??

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    1. Yes, winter came suddenly. There was snow on blooming roses last week!

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  5. I think Erin put her fingers on so many things happening here.
    I like the surrendering part of your body after an ordeal, the nurturing bowl warming your hands and our tongue and each ingredient playing its dance as though what you nurtured in life, the tomatoes, the chicken, all are there at the end, nurturing you back to comfort.

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    1. Rosaria, you connect beautifully to what was raised here at the farm, something I had not considered consciously. Thank you.

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  6. I can picture you sitting there and enjoying each moment. 'Me-time' is what Ginnie always says. I never had a wood stove or a fireplace in the house where I lived in. I hope you don't get such a cold and long winter like last winter.

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    1. Thank you, Astrid. This winter is supposed to be equally cold and harsh to last year's. Actually, I am very interested in how people respond to it. I think I'll begin a sociological/psychological secret survey. :)

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  7. A truly extraordinary poem, Ruth, one of your best! What comes through is your wonderful ability to enter the moment, to remain present with the the day's offerings, to be abundantly alive while knowing acutely that your very life is made possible through the surrender of other life. This is ancient memory at work, knowledge that comes from fire and food, rather than from books.

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    1. George, I am happy you feel that, because I feel it too, that the process of writing this was one of being exposed, opened, laid bare to what is here, and what has been here. Sadly, I do not do this regularly enough. Maybe writing as meditation needs to return. It does connect me/us with what has always been, what is eternal. This moment is eternal. Can I sense that every day, if not every moment? I think it's possible. I just have to take the time. Thank you.

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  8. Oh, the heat of this! The eroticism that Erin pointed out, Rosaria's surrender, the connection to what George called "ancient memory". Yes, a thousand times. I, too, love "splayed" & was jolted by "lust". In a good way (it's the shift of the poem, to me, from the domestic scene, to the primal desires at its heart).
    But if it bothers you as the poet, perhaps the flames can beat without it, or possibly in it, or possibly the word could be "need"? But because you discuss desire as desire in the next line, in my inept and ignorant opinion, you could just let the flames beat against the window, and allow our imaginations to complete the thought...(this same inept & ignorant editor would remove "now" after "all velvet on my tongue"--such a beautiful line). But I could never write this. This is you, down to your very core, and you know what is necessary and what it not. I just wish we could see more of it...
    The moment is eternal. Just ask VW... ;-)

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    1. Dear DS, thank you. I like your suggestions very much. I've learned from years workshopping poems that I as the poet do not necessarily know what is best, because the reader brings her/his lens, and this is very helpful. I need some quiet time to revise, and when I do, I'll post it here. xo

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  9. Hi Ruth, the cold sweeps into Florida with less than a knockout punch -- upper 30s tonight -- but enough to get both of our cats up onto this chair with me as I write, curling into the blanket on my lap. The moment you capture here of taking comfort deep inside an outer bitter chill is I think the very locus of transformation of finding life in death - that "pleasure" you finish with. Without a hearth and home, winter is just too bitter. I like also that the poem reaches but does not quite quench, for otherwise the satiety would deny what's occurring outside. Ours is a precarious vantage, fleeting and small while winter gathers strength. Thanks for keeping things warm, and best of the season to you ...

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    1. Dear Brendan, it's good to see you here. The image of you there with your cats keeping warm is quite nice. Let's write our way through these winter storms. Thanks so much for visiting and reading. I've been missing our old Rilke gatherings.

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  10. I envy you your woodburner. We don't have one at this house. A fireplace, yes, but not the comfort of the perpetual coziness that I had become used to. It's probably the thing that I miss most about our old house. I'm not sure if the young couple who bought the house is even using it to its full extent. Probably not, with two little ones to keep track of, and with him working all the time.

    The chicken soup sounds lovely. And the last line of your wonderful poem reminds me of the series of books I just finished about the Scottish Highlanders in the 1700's. Whenever they killed an animal for meat, they always thanked the animal at the moment of its death for providing sustenance. It's a lovely thing to do.

    xoxo
    Susie

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    1. Susie, thank you for reading and for your lovely comment. Maybe one day you and David can put in an insert and get that feel back, and heating power. When we did that in the cottage fireplace, we lost some of the aesthetics, but wow, what we gained in heat!

      I love that giving thanks to the animal at the moment of death. This Thanksgiving I'm going to remember that. xo

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  11. I love that this scene brings me to you and your home at one particular moment of delight and also connects me to the more universal experience of desire. I love, too, the gratitude you convey for these everyday miracles.

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    1. Thank you, Mary. As much trouble as winter causes, I love the complexity of it. Sometimes it's best observed from indoors. :)

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  12. One of your best, at least for me. And oh, how I can relate!

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    1. Thank you, Jeanie. If a poem can connect you with that spot within you that shines, I'm thrilled.

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  13. A truly beautiful and expressive poem, Ruth!
    Wishing you and your family a Wonderful New Year!
    Warm hugs,
    Sonia.

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All responses are welcome.