Jenne R. Andrews: Looking Through a Window at December

If we could hold this instant–
dried amber leaves
on nearly bare branches
delineating mother of pearl sky—

could we find the gold ring
we dropped in autumn grass
other memento mori
of our carelessness—

how I, shaken,
once held a small dog to me,
pressing ether-soaked cloth
to his muzzle
so that, laid out on the creek bank,
he could float out
of this profane world.

Would I see his spirit
deer-chasing down the runnels
of heaven?

Or, imagine that the window
frames a page
in a story of prodigal love—
a moment of détente,
laying down the lexicon
that so pierces—

Lord, we are troubled here,
swallows beating against
a frost-blurred pane–
novice glass-breakers,
disconsolate.

Given time, would I discern the faces
of those I have lost—
a mother risen from the loam
born on the breeze
with crossed arms
like sorrow-mute Ophelia,
her dark hair heavy with silt,

a father who withered
running out of breath;
would I sense his last
sotto voce pleas for water?

Yes—no need for a timepiece—
but to look out at the statuary
of contorted old trees,
ice cast, their fingerling branches
clawing the firmament,
great green hearts pounding on

in this opalescent vigor
named winter—
how it reassures us
in the acquiescent art
of holding fast.

—-

Jenne’ Andrews lives in rural Colorado with her husband Jack Brooks. Her most recent collection is the expanded chapbook Blackbirds Dance in the Empire of Love, Finishing Line Press, 2013. Her book length collection And Now, the Road was a finalist for the 2014 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize.