New Year’s Eve. Warm spell begins to break.
The wild swans’ pond (near the line of summer
houses with their shutters nailed closed,
empty for winter) is beginning to ice over:
the mystery of a change of state:
how is it that what is ice was water?
The houses have two views of water,
ocean and pond. Storms’ wind-driven waves break
against them; no more may be built, the State
and prudence forbid it. In great storms of summer,
dying hurricanes, some have fallen over.
They are not rebuilt. The Town’s deed-book stays closed.
The houses have two views, but have been closed
since sometime after Labor Day. By then, the water
is cold, and the winds are colder, blowing over
cold sand. The wild rose bushes do not break
the wind. Some owners come back after summer
for a few weekends, but live out of state
and find five hours on the Interstate,
each way, too much; and if it rains, you’re closed
up with the kids all weekend, not like summer
when they have friends there. Anyway, the water
is just too cold.—When the milkweeds break
no one in the houses sees their silk float over.
No one is in the houses. Shuttered over,
their windows are blind to the changing state
of things: the clumsy taxiing, the noisy break
from pond to air of a wild swan; the closed
pod that opens; light floating on the water;
fall turning to winter, as it had turned from summer.
New Year’s Eve. It does not seem that summer
has ever been, that winter will be over,
ever. A warm spell has only meant the water
in the swans’ pond is not yet ice: a state
of grace: the year’s accounts will soon be closed.
Who knows, once ice has formed, when it will break?
Winter locks things up, keeps them safe under
the ice. It is not the season to suggest
openings. There must be time for things to mend.
YOU ARE READING
Teaching the Rocks to Swim: 2012 Attys Entry by Lee Rudolph
PoetryTen formal poems, collected into an entry for the Attys contest.
