Hurricane Lodge

She has the world
in her mouth,
pliable blue orb
that it is, rubbery
sweetness at its core.
Isabelle won’t let go,
no temptation great
enough for a trade.
Can’t trade food
for bombs. Neither
cookies nor a scratch
under the chin
entices her
to stand down.

No postage required,
free gift unlikely, certainly
some people think they serve
no purpose but I had a dog once
got great joy ripping them
from magazines, shredding
them into tiny white-black hills
near the fireplace.

Those journals read a lot better
without the triple-edged intrusion
of those hopeful cardboard invites?
I mean, did some editor think
my guests would be so impressed
they’d rip em out
and fill in their identity
the minute they returned

home or that copies
of those obscure reviews
were going to end up
in waiting rooms
where the public would decide
the poetry life
was what was missing
in their meager existence?

All those wing-nuts who take the huge snows in the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere  (but not in New England although that may be about to change) as “proof” that global warming isn’t real made me think of this poem from last Fall.  So with bare ground galore in Vermont at present, here goes:

All Climate Change is Local

What is it with these winter
moths who gang up
on the glass porch door
like j.d.’s hanging out
at the corner store, smoking
and intimidating passersby?

The dogs whine to go out,
but the unsightly patchwork
of November visitors –
it isn’t winter after all,
not even cold –
gives us pause.
Still when nature calls,
we all must listen.

Sometime last century
we found ourselves walking
the main street of a small village
white and green houses
completely snowed in.

Front doors vanished
behind upside-down coconut ice
cream cones waving over blinding sands.
There were no visible routes
for ingress, egress, any gress.

The town library waged
a brave and unsuccessful battle
to keep its books available to residents
before it finally gave up,
conceded that only a January thaw

of biblical proportions or a spring outbreak
of Gulf air, would free its face
to the world – both as likely
as every elementary school student
coming down with the flu at the same time.

Those who wanted
to borrow a book, visit
in a neighbor’s kitchen
or deliver a package
would have to find another way.

What is it makes my daughter
love them so? Rarely sweet,
far from uniform, they sport
night-colored globules
like miniature tumors
yet are said to fight cancers
and other diseases with the strength
of gods. Stroke those mismatched
jewel-drops too hard
and get an early summer
embarrassment
of riches: shiny,
gentle explosion
paints your fingers.

What are they talking about?
They’re talking about dying.

Those giant sunflowers, flattened
by the hurricane, spring back
when gently pushed into place, but beg
for the tallest stakes imaginable;
there isn’t time before the ferry leaves
to run Down-Island to Shirley’s Hardware.
It’s get those supports
and barely make the boat
or take the kids to the Flying Horses.
Let those sad yellow faces
go, choose the future,
face the consequences.