{"id":5337,"date":"2018-03-29T18:02:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T18:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2019-02-04T19:23:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T19:23:50","slug":"three-poems-john-linstrom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5337","title":{"rendered":"THREE POEMS — John Linstrom"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOOT OF A YOUNG STAR<\/strong><\/p>\n

But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
\nThe rays that come from those heavenly worlds,
\nwill separate between him and what he touches. \u2013Emerson,<\/em><\/em> from Nature<\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nSo unlike you and me, once trapped,
\ntwo supermassive stars
\nin binary attraction
\nwill slide through easy space,
\nmeet in the middle, violent
\nand silent as candle flames, and wed:
\n 
\na new creature, collision rite,
\npulsing, flashing whole.
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

We\u2019re not trapped. We\u2019re spread,
\nspread-eagle on pine needles
\nunder black-green whispers
\nand eyelids thin as flames.
\n 
\nI cannot conceive
\nin the dark, the space
\nbetween our mouths, which is vast
\nor negligible, like our ages,
\n 
\nvast or negligible. The average star
\nis forty-one fifty light-years
\nfrom the next, and our sparky Sun
\nshould live to thirteen billion.
\n 
\nBillion. You\u2019re not so old,
\nnor I, comparably, so young.
\nI imagine the debris of my chattering
\nteeth should have reached you by now.
\n 
\nFeet become miles,
\nhands become roots,
\nand under each smile
\nwe\u2019re bare-boned and soot.
\n 
\nSoot<\/em>, as pastors have said,
\nthick-thumbed and sober, into my head:<\/p>\n

Soot of a palm frond,
\nsoot of a young star;
\nof soot you were first formed
\nand sooty you still are.<\/em><\/p>\n

On my head, scratched and spread
\nby a roving grubby fingernail.
\nNow that spot\u2019s a piney itch
\nand I just think we\u2019re more than carbon\u2014
\n 
\nbut the wind hits,
\nless than solar but more than us,
\nand we\u2019re quiet as the thinnest needles
\nfill our minds with a million slender sighs.
\n 
\n 
\nWhat\u2019s in a dream but our least-tested wishes,
\nand what\u2019s in a wish but a let-down? The stars
\nwere holes in my memory
\nof a moment that never could happen.
\n 
\nBut this morning, let me recall
\nthat feeling your breath
\nwhen you leaned over me,
\nstale and lovely, I could fall
\n 
\nup through your darkest matter,
\nyour teacher\u2019s smile,
\nthe needles of your irises
\nthe whispered net that held me
\nfrom so many years of colored light.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

RETTING<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the gathering,
\nthe pluck from dirt,
\nrip of root from root\u2014
\n 
\nbefore the breaking down,
\nthe scutch-scutch<\/em> of knife
\nagainst fibers hung
\n 
\nand before the heckle comes
\nto comb proverbial wheat
\nfrom chaff\u2014
\n 
\nwe must rot
\nfrom the inside:<\/p>\n

free the best fibers.
\nmake ready the linen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

LITTLE DEATHS<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I saw my backyard strewn
\nwith soft gray fur
\nthis morning
\n 
\nthat stuck in tufts
\non the crunchy top snow
\nand wisped,
\n 
\nand it was strewn
\nwith the clawprints
\nof many crows\u2019 feet
\n 
\nspiraling inward
\naround this: ripped flaps
\nof exposed inner skin,
\n 
\nbones dislocated
\nor snapped, no flesh
\nor very little, headache purples
\n 
\nand sweet reds in the thin
\nfrozen membrane that held
\nto the slender curve
\n 
\nof a spinal column that ended
\nin midair over the snow
\ndecapitated, no ears,
\n 
\nthe single foot kicked back
\nand unmutilated, revealing
\nthe identity of the rabbit.
\n 
\n 
\nI leave for two days
\nand this is what happens.
\nCrows eye us from their branches.
\n 
\n 
\nI had enjoyed her company
\nsince the tired autumn
\nwhen she\u2019d chew grass and weeds
\n 
\nby the garage in the mornings
\nwhen the crows made their noise
\nand in the evening owl hours.
\n 
\nShe was not my grandmother,
\nhad no tubes to breathe or chemo
\nto prop her. She died in this white open.
\n 
\nI appreciated her living here,
\ndespite my never knowing
\nher preferences, where she came from
\n 
\nand whether she feared me, and, till now,
\nthe unimaginable softness,
\nthis feeling of absence
\n 
\nof my fingers through her fur.
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

\"\"John Linstrom’s poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Commonweal Magazine, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Dunes Review<\/em>, and Broad River Review.<\/em> In 2015, Counterpoint Press published his centennial edition of Liberty Hyde Bailey\u2019s ecological manifesto, The Holy Earth<\/em>, with a new foreword by Wendell Berry. He is currently a doctoral candidate in English and American Literature at New York University, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOOT OF A YOUNG STAR But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. \u2013Emerson, from Nature   So unlike you and me, once trapped, two supermassive stars in binary attraction will slide through easy [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[295],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-art-by-sam-linstrom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5425,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions\/5425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}