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Hyper-present absence.

I am a little more-than-usual reflective at the moment, not quite sure how to reset after more than a week of guests and their dogs and a certain three year-old’s kinetic energy. It was desperately loud when they were here and it is desperately quiet now that they’ve gone.

The poet and essayist, Elisa Gabbert, writes of the hyper-present absence she says is always lurking in a poem. I feel that now. Perhaps I always feel it, just more acutely at the edge of a holiday or a weekend or a goodbye.

A poem won’t solve the problem of absence. But as the writer J.L. Carr observed, only the death of spirit is to be feared. And poetry is full of spirit.

(Carr’s small publishing imprint, Quince Tree, published tiny booklets called The Little Poets which Carr commended in part because they required only one hand and wrist outside the covers. Perfect for a deep winter’s day.)

      JANUARY THAW

    Roof snaps, eaves jaw, 
toboggan sticks & we make 
               angels.
            See them 
         now, on the hill
             just below
             the porch.
            Immutable,
               the path
                we cut
                  with
                   our
                 boots
                 along
                  side
                   the
                  idle
                 prints
                    of
                  deer
                   and
                 rabbit
                   and
                 mouse,
                  here
                   and
                   not
   
                  here
          

*

Happy New Year everyone.

Happy Birthday CV2: The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing—which this month is celebrating its 50th year.

And RIP Andrew Pyper, a wonderful writer. Andrew attended my book club more than once to discuss his novels and always amazed us with his ideas and methods and spirit. He was a generous human.