IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK

Winter In Maitland

A poem

Photo by on

I.
It’s amazing how much is living,
this season of jacket and breath,
beneath oak trees wearing tattered clothes
elephant ears nod wedge-shaped heads.
The spillways and ponds are opals
glorious with new life and litter,
white herons still on dipstick legs
like perfect origami figures
and the woodpecker’s code taps
to the others asleep in winter.

II.
It’s amazing how much is living
this season when the giants dream
with mouths wide open of warmer nights,
under the hills their bellies heave,
their rotten molars in moving streams,
these grandfathers of Andrew
and Erin, make no sound until,
through a song of missing teeth,
their snoring thunders the air
and rain fills the whole world.