among four pines

ABSOLUTE ZERO

The grey coal cars thunder slowly

over the rust-orange bridge

again.  & I pledge

allegiance to their gravity,

to the stern trumpet of the train horn

as they go.  Down the street

Grandpa’s brick Paraclete

among four pines awaits the morn

(birthday, today).  That carpenter’s

clear eye – a level’s bubble –

gazes out (chaste, equable)

into the turbulence of Zoroaster’s

Peacock Star (Yezidi refugee).

& ours.  A world of tears.

Absolute zero sears

the riverbanks.  The Mississippi

plunges under ice.  The dead of winter

sleep in Resurrection

Cemetery – Berryman,

Henry... each petrified splinter.

Massed in the clouds, a stone mizzen.

From profound Black Sea

she strains so steadily

toward me... a limpid sail, a friend.

Is she life, or death?  Her vault

is mourning.  Yet her smile

is joy – raven diagonal

coursing toward dawn (where Magi halt).

1.6.17 

Natasha Stempel, Voronezh(?) ca. 1936