On Days Like This

Tags

Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, seasonal poetry

I love days when melting snow plings rubaiyat
about my feet on city streets, and streams
of poetry wend through my mind, accelerate
while, grocery laden, I can’t reach to dam them.

I love days when slush, exhaust and salt-
encrusted, slows me down enough to let
verse, blank and free-range, have their play.
Syllabic counters, take your salary—and go!

I love days when I don’t care who’s driving
through the neighbourhood with licence plates
from out of state to cipher what I’ve conjugated
from the verbs I do not talk about, except to friends.

On days like this, when winter strokes a gentle
cooling hand across this cabin-fevered brow
I catapult like daffodils and spring from woolly
bed sheets to the silken possibilities of now.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016
Image of melting snow: photographer unknown

Advertisement