Samantha Wright
New Year
I will be a landscape artist today
painting the day with a shovel
our short days hard as an oval window
You, the fisherman drowning season
silver fin winter
I feel you
cold and damp.
Before I can sit down
I paint in broad strokes
I take the harbor in my hands
This little easel
where even diamonds
discover hardness
I apprehend the air
I catch it like a trophy
The twins of winter
smoke and evaluation
To squeeze the year
and pursue it
and call it courage
To ask the days if we got it right
I ignore the cold shoulder of
December, which is a climate of disquiet
At least it is leaving soon
Have I ever asked
the ice if it is a relief to melt?
I keep painting winter seascapes
as though they are always there
waiting for me
to become a coincidence
Coincidences drive to the
ocean themselves
and never stop to talk
about mood swings or tides
unlike the strange, quiet moon
where it is winter all the time
I will be a landscape artist today
painting the day with a shovel
our short days hard as an oval window
You, the fisherman drowning season
silver fin winter
I feel you
cold and damp.
Before I can sit down
I paint in broad strokes
I take the harbor in my hands
This little easel
where even diamonds
discover hardness
I apprehend the air
I catch it like a trophy
The twins of winter
smoke and evaluation
To squeeze the year
and pursue it
and call it courage
To ask the days if we got it right
I ignore the cold shoulder of
December, which is a climate of disquiet
At least it is leaving soon
Have I ever asked
the ice if it is a relief to melt?
I keep painting winter seascapes
as though they are always there
waiting for me
to become a coincidence
Coincidences drive to the
ocean themselves
and never stop to talk
about mood swings or tides
unlike the strange, quiet moon
where it is winter all the time