in memoriam Bill Knott
With the cold front
came news of your death—
a failed bypass—
and a skim of snow
that vanishes at the sun’s touch.
Soon, only shadows are white,
like the letters
I keep trying to form
as my pen runs out of ink.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- January noon
- Primary sources
- Nuthatch
- Haustorial
- Walking the line
- Gospel
- Wildstyle
- Close to home
- Lay of the land
- Primary school
- Subnivean
- Secondary school
- Rabid
- Snow plow
- Breaking through
- Miner
- Bark Ode
- Snowfall
- Pastoral
- Sledding
- Valentine’s Day dreams
- Rabbit
- Deep snow
- Head cold
- Snow follies
- Thaw
- Reanimation
- Old snow
- Clearing
- Burning the tissues
- Filmstrip
- How to tell the woodpeckers
- Opening
- Winterkill
- Winter sky, age 5
- March
- Downsizing
- Cold Front
- Winter gardener
- Vessels
- Grand jeté
- Threnody
- Evergreens
- Slush
- Out
- Snowmelt
- Emergence
- In place
- The death of winter
- Salt
- Harbingers
- Wintergreen
- Evolution
- Camouflage
- Spruce grove
- Waiting to launch
- Tintype
- Terminology
- In good light
- Reach
- Old field
- Rain date
- Onion snow
- Rite of spring
- Searchers
- Migrants
- Camberwell Beauty
- Lotic
- Empty
- Walking onions
- Trailing arbutus
- Makeshift
- Risen
- Remnant
- Sleight-of-hand
For what it’s worth, that actually happened. My black ballpoint pen ran out of ink just as I was trying to draft this poem in my pocket notebook. Instead of the snow melts, I got the snow me.
I’m thinking Bill Knott would’ve had a much better idea what to do with that irony.
the snow me
fades; yet we
must chisel language