Saturday, April 14, 2007

POETRY Moose in the Morning, Northern Maine ... Mona VAN DUYN

“Moose in the Morning, Northern Maine”
Mona VAN DUYN (1921-2004)
From Selected Poems (2002)

At six a.m. the log cabins
nose an immense cow-pie of mist
that lies on the lake.
Nineteen pale goldfinches perch
side by side on the telephone wire
that runs to shore,
and under them the camp cow,
her bones pointing this way and that,
is collapsed like a badly constructed
pup tent in the dark weeds.
Inside, I am building a fire
in the old woodstove with its rod overhead
for hunters’ clothes to steam on.
I am hunting for nothing—
perhaps the three cold pencils
that lie on the table like kindling
could go in to start the logs.
I remember Ted Weiss saying,
“At the exhibition I suddenly realized
Picasso had to remake everything he laid his eyes on
into an art object.
He couldn’t let the world alone.
Since then I don't write every morning.”

The world is warming and lightening
and mist on the pond
dissolves into bundles and ribbons.
At the end of my dock there comes clear,
bared by the gentle burning,
a monstrous hulk with thorny head,
up to his chest in the water,
mist wreathing round him.
Grander and grander grows the sun
until he gleams, his brown coat
glistens, the great rack,
five feet wide, throws sparks
of light. A ton of monarch,
munching, he stands spotlit.
Then slowly, gravely, the great neck lowers
head and forty pounds of horn
to sip the lake.
The sun stains the belittled
cow’s hide amber.
She heaves her bones and bag
and her neckbell gongs
as she gets to her feet
in yellow blooms of squaw-weed.
On the telephone wire
all the little golden bells are ringing
as that compulsive old scribbler, the universe,
jots down another day.

1 Comments:

Blogger Andy Mooers said...

Have some neat moose images you might want to use with your poem. Huge bullwinkle in the middle of a pond with sun just right and water dripping from antlers ...how do you insert images in these comments without heavy duty time consuming html? Attachments possible? Email info@mooersrealty.com and will ping them back to you!

Thursday, May 31, 2007 7:04:00 PM  

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