Noel Rowe- a fine poet and lecturer

Pentecost

It is a simple thing for you to light the fire
early in the morning. You take the wood,
smelling still of earth and air despite the axe,
you take the smallest pieces first, barely more
than splinters, place them cross-wise
on yesterday’s discarded news, and touch it all
with your finger spreading flame until the dead words
begin to glow, and break.

Yesterday, we buried him:
and with him, more than half your life. Habits shaped
for thirty-six years of marriage hang about the house
and wonder what to do. So you, though you know
he will not need his usual cup of tea,
will get up, all the same, will touch
above the fireplace the shelf he made for you, and let
your whole sorrow hang by one hand,
then bend to make the fire,
to take its fierce shadow in your palm.


Afterwards

The street that took us every day
to hear the poets read
this morning carries on
as if we were never here
as if it was only ever interested
in selling shoes

I’ve taken my position
in the corner of a coffee shop
where I can watch passers by
and in a Judith Herzberg poem read
that making friends
requires not persistence but pause

She has just this morning left the city
having said when I hoped we’d meet again
life is not very long
her voice conveying not sorrow
but something that might come afterwards
the sound of being unencumbered

Looking up from her poem I see
crossing the street in my direction
a bearded man dragging his right leg
he’s wearing red runners and
blossoming at his knees
a full white petticoat