Watertown

Why can't I write about you?

I think enough about you:

your autumns, your snow laden pines,

your silent snowfall sunrises,

your end of summer amber moons.

I think on those days beside the Black River

reading Gillan, Ginsberg, Rimbaud,

the signs in the stones, its shifty water.

How I found myself absent contemplation,

more peaceful than a sleeping seagull.

I haven't yet begun to thank you for that.

But this isn't the time for thanks.

I remember a professor saying that Hemingway

once said something about never writing

about a place until you're miles, an ocean away.

I think the quote had to do with perspective...

plucking insight from distances

like you would apples from an orchard.

I tremble more than a farmer

who wakes to an early fall frost

when I look down those distant roads.

How my basket is empty.

I'm away--away--too far away--

so far that sentimentality has begun to rot

our memories like a store of apples

intended from cider and spiced donuts.

How my basket is empty.

I'm away--away--too far away

that the small bus stop I waited outside of

for a taxi to the local college campus

is a fly on the side of a glass of wine

I poured but couldn't bring myself to drink.