Three Poems
by Chris Dahl
Return of The Sorrow Gondola
Someone brings back my copy of Transtromer’s
diminutive book which I had forgotten I owned.
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“April and Silence,” has been tagged. I recognize
the marking slip with its tip lit red.
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What did I love here, the “velvet-dark ditch . . .
without reflections?” Or the shadow
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that carries us? I, too, want to say things
that gleam out of reach like pawnshop silver.
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There is always sorrow in the world if you look for it.
I steer my way past it every morning.
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Not enough light. Not enough air.
Some sickness in the roots. Fungus
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and rot. But one dot of red still burns,
tucked in a forgotten passage, marking
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those trees that lean toward the smooth page,
lean as if printed light could save them.
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A gondola is a slender boat made for calm,
for poling in waters after the turmoil passes.
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A droplet rolls off a leaf, fog drifts
in hazy banners. I listen to the distant, muted
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calls of waterbirds, the cadence
of wavelets brokering our passage.
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Sick, On the Sofa, Under a Heavy Blanket
There is a way that everything can stand for something else
if you only look closely. The mountain
may stand for many things: what rises above
the flat and predictable; the heart’s constancy; eternity.
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The blade of grass, wind-dancer,
stands for one small member of the chorus line,
but has ambitions to wave a flag.
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The same blade of grass, whistling, stands
for the edge of summer.
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I know a six-year-old who whistles.
She stands for possibility and the gifts
of what we might call grace.
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Even under the blanket, my hands are cold—
as if they’ve been catching trout in an icy brook.
The brook whistles its own tune
and stands for the swift impermanence of youth.
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What does the dream stand for, trapped
in the smothering blanket cave? You bring me
a deer skull and a bird’s broken egg.
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The skull stands for wilderness or maybe
the remembrance of a past life.
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The broken shell stands
as a reminder that each moment
is fragile, that the next stage begins
with either destruction or emptiness.
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Aware of the Season’s Pivot
We come to the time of year when we wake in the dark.
No shine appears on the water; the surface smothers
any reflection. We have lost our easy ways
of gauging depth.
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Some years I have asked my mother to take my orchids
for the winter, when I head south. They’re a gift—
she could keep them, but she always give them back,
worried they’ll die. So when I return, I take them home
and immediately they bloom. If only she would wait
for the cycle to complete.
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Now, at her house, we talk in whispers.
She’s already organized her files and affairs, insistent
she can take care of things, even after she’s gone.
I’m all worn out with worry, she says. Now
I’m the one afraid of the future.
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Yesterday I took the wilted flowers from my father’s
funeral bouquet and rearranged what was left. Amazing how
certain species go on delighting with their fragile beauty,
alstroemerias, and even some chrysanthemums,
challenging us to find the language that describes
the pull of time, its
relentless gravity.
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These are night thoughts, of course, but then
we have so much more night, now.
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BIO
Chris Dahl hopes to cup a handful of murky pond-water and reveal another world half-hidden in this one Her chapbook, Mrs. Dahl in the Season of Cub Scouts, was published after winning Still Waters Press “Women’s Words” competition. Her poems have been placed in a wide variety of journals—most recently in Cirque and About Place Journal—and she has had poems nominated both for Best of the Internet and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Olympia, Washington where she serves on the board of the Olympia Poetry Network and edits their newsletter.