Some Winter

Coming home from town tonight
I was chasing flame
Watching sky blooming into
Something hard to explain,
Looking at it as a farmer might,
Snow still deep and crunchy,
Judging pond recharge
In spring, thinking about the water table,
Thinking about my garden,
Glancing at the road now and then,
More then than now, hitting ruts of slush
And fading into the center on old
Byways so familiar that I knew when
To watch for deer, and with
A startle, I more or less woke up.
Twilight,
Winter,
Watch for deer,
And there they were, eyes orange in
My headlights as sky began to fade to
Pastels settling behind bare stands
Of woods, there they were, alert, in
Evening-blued fields, pawing through
Snow, ready to dart at any time.
You can’t do this, I said to myself,
Don’t be so inattentive, and so
I traveled the last five miles to home
Feeling cheated, feeling virtuous.

A Small Marinating

Light out

Light on the snow,

Moon watched last night 

As creatures moved 

across my landscape

This morning, looking

I saw deer tracks, familiar 

From winters past, and then

Three-striding with a long 

Snow gash. I said, an

Injured cloven-hooved 

And P said, no, a rabbit.

You should see them pop 

Up in the headlights

When I pull in. 

Anyway, amazing, those

Who live clear in my landscape.

They are here, fully effervescent 

Fully present from time to time.

In this realm, some of them.

Some of them already in the next

I stop to wonder where this kind of

View comes from.

And in the cosmic startle of 

Understanding, I see...

All this from the lean, rich 

Prairie, 

Fuel for a life, planted

For the taking, and with 

No knowing whatsoever, I’ve

Been planting too, 

Bringing life as I know it, as it’s mine,

To this canvas, to 

This home. 

Absence of Oxygen

~ Berthoud, August 2017

Returning from one 

Of many well-loved places, 

Along the latitude of 

Touchstones and triggers,

Space to raise my gaze,

I began to understand

That I'm the maker of my

Realities, about

The truths of where I've been

And where I'm going,

Because, I thought,

There is long life ahead for me,

As well as miles,

Or maybe I should say,

Whatever life lies ahead for me

Is long enough so I have time 

For my realities.

It's time to be my blooming

And delve into my telling 

And I'm not fretting 

About any of it, as long 

As I listen to myself. 

In those days of driving

The grasses grew longer

Everywhere, or maybe that was 

Just a way of seeing, a vantage point;

Although somehow eternal there 

The sweep of prairie's

Tall grass, hard grass,

Broom and wheat, 

Sage, and rioting

Bundles of tumbleweed

Against impossible light,

The long shadows behind me

The mountains, I found 

Myself in farewell to places,

Dreams and memories.

Moving then, as tethers loosened 

I thought that finally it might be true,

Be possible for me to fly

On memory’s wings, on

Dreams that wouldn’t die. 

All of this redounding now, 

Flashing whole in this nano-second’s

Absence of oxygen,  

Exhaling, sighing as I slip away to sleep

I come into repose.

And you are there.