Last Night at Yaddo

Bathroom/Yaddo/Spring 2006
(a meditation on the eve of departure)

I imagine in the summertime
when these grooved wall boards were painted white
that the wood was pressed in close at the joints,
swollen with wet heat.

But now it’s late March.

After three dry months the panels
are pulling apart right next to the toilet paper roll
leaving a translucent skin stretched across the void,
as if it were trying to hold on,
clinging to the part of itself that is departing.

It’s almost irresistible, like fresh ice on puddles,
and I can’t believe no one else
has yet sliced along that edge with the tip of a fingernail
as they sat here

just to have the satisfaction of that brittle tearing sound–
rending those last few tendrils of attachment to what is shrinking so slowly away.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here's a simple slow air I wrote a couple years ago; it's a farewell for a friend's last night at Yaddo, the artist's colony in Saratoga NY...

Last Night at Yaddo (air) mp3

~

two thoughts on winter

The cold has descended. The first snow has piled itself on the steps and the ground has frozen. Here are two thoughts about winter: a poem I wrote a few years ago, and a new fiddle tune called "The Early Dark."

I.

Winter, 2006

One degree costs fifty dollars this year:
that’s the price to raise the thermostat
for thirty short days
up to 64,
where it seems
I live surrounded by a comfort
unknown to me at 63.

It’s only a temporary corrective.
The truth is
we belong to the cold.
We are its subjects,
and must eventually render unto it
what has always been due.

I believe that this is how it goes:
everything growing colder and colder,
each notch of heat in turn
becoming too dear–
until all the toasting of walnuts,
and all those steaming cups of tea
finally offer us no relief–
then at last
we fall to room temperature ourselves
and can’t buy even one degree of warmth anymore forever.


II.

The Early Dark (reel) MP3