This Black and White Scene

Although the brook’s ankle-deep,

the hole in the ice looks bottomless.

Black as cast iron, it tempts me

to lean so far over I’ll fall

into the center of the earth.

You agree that an abstraction

has formed, maybe by Arthur Dove

or Clyfford Still. You note

that it’s “eerie but beautiful,”

and represents nothing in nature.

So we’re in nature but this brook,

flowing from the Peterborough Hills

to the Contoocook River, warps

from one world to another.

No wonder the painters I loved

in my youth went insane and ate

paint-squiggles straight from the tube.

No wonder museums prevent

visitors from touching the canvas.

Touching this black and white scene

would plunge me into constructions

of Anthropocene horror ripe

as the moment before a scream.

You note that I’ve carelessly rhymed,

that my seams are showing again,

but I need that stark crude emphasis

to cut through temptation and stop

me from dropping into that hole                                        

and in one world breaking my neck

on the shallow rocky bottom

and in another world emerging

on the dark side of the moon.

Photographing the Hops Field

Stranded ankle-deep in snow,

the tall poles of the hops field

sketch runes on the winter sky.

Wind across the river bottom

aches with lonely ghosts exhumed

from brown and dog-eared histories.

Trying to snap a photo, I’m caught

in the breath of invisible worlds.

You hide your smile in the car

while I brace myself on absence,

my tough Norwegian sweater

armoring my vitals but leaving

my intellect exposed. The river,

sulking just beyond the field,

clings to its identity despite

the chill blown down from Canada.

The hills beyond look tired

of being hills, but lack volition.

In summer the hops grow

twenty-five feet up these poles.

They love the aerated valley soil,

rich and iron-red. Their bines

get plenty of support from rope

or wires, their ripe cones filling

with powdery gold lupulin.

You don’t care about the fine points

of growing hops and brewing beer

but prefer to face the low orange sun

and embrace its tender lessons.

The wind flicks little gouts of snow

dancing across the rutted slick.

As I take my photo I glimpse,

in the whorl of my bad eye,

a bit of ghost-green lingering—

an overlap of dimensions

that defines us despite ourselves.