Winter is still around, though no snows, just ice and frost most mornings. Snow seems to be just on the nearby hills, but avoiding the valley floor, which I can appreciate.
Today’s poem is from 8:97
ON POETS
each word, a stone in the pocket
of your ragged jeans.
you can beat back demons with some
(though never as far as you wished),
& barter with the old woman
at the end of the highway for dreams
with others, though she has no real need of them.
mostly she just throws them at crows
in her corn patch.
some allow privacy.
some even buy pleasures
in the right economics
but that too is temporal.
they are just agates: voices
you cannot ignore -
even if no one else seems to hear.
the world is full
of the deaf & mutilated.
agates with visions
you spend long nights trying to decipher.
stones that do not allow
you to float on the tranquil waters.
still, at dawn, as mist rises off the dark sea,
you can be found, wet socks in your
trousers, collecting more.
it is, after all, your own voice you seek.
