B F R

the broadside series


#5


Blue Fifth Review
Volume VII. Issue 1
January 2007

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Lynn Strongin
( Victoria, B.C., Canada )

poem and audio links

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Winter 7

i.

Crazed

Dark dots fall 
rain.
Emily won

one prize in her lifetime:
for 
Indian bread.

* * *

Birds flatten
themselves on sky, as though wrought iron;
as though fleeing a gunman.

Cracks appear
in even the most lyric
hunger 

causing fever to spike, scarlet
vivider
than winter sun.

One does not die of this fever as it cools down. Preternatural:
housebound.
I see sky curve around, down:

closing over a box of silk:
while birds, crazing sky like porcelain,
fly to roost before steel locks sundown.



 

ii.

The Cloud of Witnesses Is Gone

which blew like marble-dust
choking eyes & throat.

What the sculptor carved, stands:
radiance
that takes life, holds it in both hands.

* * *

We put Gesualdo on:
For so long
supper hour rang like a temple-bell, a bronze chime.

Now, 
when warmth leaves earth,
unwitnessed but witnessing,
             We bow to fire-sheets of sound:
             to choirs, & the quiet finch come
             to dine.

iii.

Winter Seven (7)

Opponents shaking hands before the round;
Ozone rising like water         to close above a town;
Woman-organist with small hands; 
A body defying paralysis, dealt on non-negotiable terms;
A long vigil in a sickroom:
Acceptance,     that profound presencing of calm.

The poet finds her life engulfed by clouds of unknowing:        O Magnum Mysterium.
A great Romanian uncle (at age 93) said to me:
“C’etait une grande poete, une grande Juive,” ( Simone Weil.) “Comme toi.”
Wound in fire-sheets of sound: these winter seven.

Author's note: The translation of the line by Weil: "She was a great poet, a great Jew like you."

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