THE ORIGINAL DEBATE

If most of the leaves have fallen,

heavy clouds and freezing temperatures

can change the landscape

as if the original debate

were between the leaves’ fall

and the snow’s fall

adds up to

another winter slow to rise

on the horizon

another dawn slow to

echo yesterday’s call

of the fall’s crow

where in the streaks of the

early morning’s sun there is

the semblance of a sentence

no more than the noise of a caterwaul unleashed and

run at full throttle over a

stone surface lined with

age to point in one

direction.

© cmheuer, 2013

WHEN THE COLD COATS EACH TWIG

Who brings in the dog when the cold coats each twig?

Who promises a clear view from the mountain’s crest?

Unsmeared, proportioned

Glimpse of a better day held

Back because whose vision

Bifocal or trifocal

Can make out a single

Symbol among the day’s

Ort, scraped to the side

Of a plate and tossed out

The door, down the steps,

And along the mole dug

Earth caved in from the dog’s foot.

STORM II

As if the first storm had not been

An anomaly, as if the snow’s depth

Had not stopped the traffic’s flow,

As ice can interrupt a river’s current,

The second storm seems common-place,

A photographer’s often-used backdrop,

Along the road, in a parking lot,

A cold scene,

A cup’s hot water spilled

Freezes before it falls,

As breath is frozen before the eyes,

As a glance is frozen by the

Rapid shutter speed

Of the eyes' lids,

There is awareness, a sense,

Of the other’s quickened step,

Of the eyes’ sidelong focus,

 Of the silent stand,

As the clouds thin

And the inch by inch accretion

Is stopped, the retransformation

Complete, as may

Any eye’s sight repeated

Often enough leaves no more than

A whisper, fragile in the warmer air,

Dissolves too in the windy gusts

Of the early morning, scattered

The hint of knowledge barely

Discernible without the fingers’

Wide spread across the knee,

The profile paler in lean light,

Or so one would think, as

Certain as a snow’s fall and melt,

Would not the mind’s play,

Set in a common day’s scene,

Fade each time it is repeated,

Or could one brush stroke laid

Over the last sharpen the hue,

Suggest what is hidden,

Lead the restorer

Deeper for the repeated fall.

© Christina Heuer, 2013

THE EARLY MORNING'S CHILL

Awakened in the dark by a

subtle shift in the 2 x 4’s

studded brace and beam,

a crow’s caw, or the memory of

his voice hummed, whispered,

and eased its way through the

shadows like the light touch

of his hand wanted, but

imagined because

there is an audience,

his lined palm drawn down

her back turned away from

the early morning’s chill

before the dark evening’s

song could shatter,

a bare foot touched the

hard wood floor and began

its step-by-step approach

towards the sun not yet

risen might hear a poet’s

plea and not rise

upon a room without a sound

of more than one breath,

without a sound of more

than one set of steps,

or the respiration of

a plant, or the

lifted paw of an old pet

could have obscured

the quiet voice wrapped

the soles of her feet and

cushioned the early morning’s

steps

© cmheuer, 2013

MOURNING DOVES

Gun shots bludgeon the air,

Rattle the corn stalks’ stubble.

I call the mourning doves to feed

On sunflower seeds spilled like

Corn after the harvest.

I shudder with each rapid lift

Of the wings knowing that one falls

Weighted and unheard.

Neither a guitar string nor a piano key

Sounds in the gunner’s air.

I scatter the seed, and I count the doves.

Before me, a man counted yellow chicks

After he found the snake’s skin

Shed at the edge of the cinder block wall.

He counted again when the

Snake lay humped and well-fed

At the galvanized feed trays.

The count had diminished;

Each one subtracted as if it were a game,

And, at each move, he lost another.

Saw them stack up

On the opponent’s side;

Rubbed his chin as every man has

Rubbed his chin sitting on a feed barrel

With a game board on his knees,

Thinking through the next move, counting those left,

After one has been shot, arm uplifted before the face in

One last gesture, the eyes shielded from the sun,

Too bright or too close for the last move,

Summed up for the last count.

I feed the mourning doves,

I feed the hunters,

And I count.

In Memory of William A. Smith

© cmheuer, 2013

A SHARP RIGHT TURN

A sharp right turn,

perpendicular line segments

paved beneath the live wires,

follows the current

along small brick-walled houses

spread under a few maples and oaks

rise higher than the electron flow,

higher than the sharp right turn,

hidden in a top-down scene is leaved

and branched in all directions

the current flows.

© cmheuer, 2013

ACROSS MY EYES

the snow fell before dawn,

spiraled in the blind light,

scattered into a heavy array

across the road and ditch,

until there was no difference

between the light and the snow,

no distance between one minute and the next

to create a corridor where

either moon or stars could

pierce the dark fury

on either side,

no vision,

no sense of direction

led away from the rapid flurry of the snow’s

pre-dawn assertion of rights

over the clouded sun rise,

over the liquid water state,

over the will to see

beyond the punctured dark

tin sheath to a single

source of light that

captured each complex,

rule-driven, one-of-a-kind, icy wisp

drawn and blown

across my eyes

© 2013 cmheuer