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Metamorphosis
The river is lined with the voices of peepers.
Here it is, Spring again, although a few weeks ago
I wouldn’t have bet against my blood turning arctic cold in New England rivers.
The days have run past us like cheap souvenirs,
leaving so much we could have done to derail the world.
But none of this is tragic or worth a moment’s lament.
I’m grateful for the gift of another Spring.
There are no remedies for the human propensity for
self-annihilation, so I rejoice when I see the first Amaryllis.
When I can, I turn over the earth and inhale its
heady odors: decay transformed into growth.
Even worms are amorous beneath the deep grass
as the planet fills and flows.
The night vibrates with the intense burning of stars above the evergreens
In the morning, butterflies improvise.
The shadow of a bee lowers over a tulip, and in the still air
I hear a million times a second motionlessness of a hummingbird.
- Franz Douskey
Here it is, Spring again, although a few weeks ago
I wouldn’t have bet against my blood turning arctic cold in New England rivers.
The days have run past us like cheap souvenirs,
leaving so much we could have done to derail the world.
But none of this is tragic or worth a moment’s lament.
I’m grateful for the gift of another Spring.
There are no remedies for the human propensity for
self-annihilation, so I rejoice when I see the first Amaryllis.
When I can, I turn over the earth and inhale its
heady odors: decay transformed into growth.
Even worms are amorous beneath the deep grass
as the planet fills and flows.
The night vibrates with the intense burning of stars above the evergreens
In the morning, butterflies improvise.
The shadow of a bee lowers over a tulip, and in the still air
I hear a million times a second motionlessness of a hummingbird.
- Franz Douskey
Testify: the Weather of Marriage
We live in our own climate, some nights in separate hemispheres.
What keeps us going is our incompatibility:
you with your twelve generations of New England winters,
and me with wandering ancestors,
unsettled by wars, until no one can remember the original
spelling of our family name.
Your family albums are neatly dated, filled with picnics and church functions.
My side has torn photos of survivors of wild voyages from Guiana to Haiti,
people who look uncomfortable in shoes.
It was easy for our friends to say we didn’t have a chance,
our emotional climates so different.
You, cool as butter, and me, the hot knife;
incompatibles who work well together
in the dark, the way our copper kettle sings all night, on top of our stove.
-Franz Douskey
(photo by Bob Cato, 1984)
What keeps us going is our incompatibility:
you with your twelve generations of New England winters,
and me with wandering ancestors,
unsettled by wars, until no one can remember the original
spelling of our family name.
Your family albums are neatly dated, filled with picnics and church functions.
My side has torn photos of survivors of wild voyages from Guiana to Haiti,
people who look uncomfortable in shoes.
It was easy for our friends to say we didn’t have a chance,
our emotional climates so different.
You, cool as butter, and me, the hot knife;
incompatibles who work well together
in the dark, the way our copper kettle sings all night, on top of our stove.
-Franz Douskey
(photo by Bob Cato, 1984)