View from
Poetry

Shifting Patterns and The Rose

(mekischc)

“Ever human-centric/We self-aggrandized/Anthropomorphized/And now agonize.”

Shifting Patterns

I

Talking about the weather

Used to be quaint—

The nuclear option among

Neighbors and strangers

When all else failed.

Now we’ve really failed:

This summer—another’s winter—

Records meant to be shattered

Stationary domes and sacrificial heat

While we withdraw, shutting ourselves in.

A home’s sanctuary

For those gifted with recourse.

 

II

I live in the North but hail

From warmer climes.

Winters here claim their toll

Though locals insist—

Will have it otherwise—

We had real winters back then

I listen and nod, not agreeing

And feeling all too well

The cold that burns

Fingers resigning themselves to the insensate.

Spread your gospel elsewhere

I say without speaking.

Having lived through one or five will do for me

Though they’re probably on to something:

This is not my father’s winter.

 

III

Be this the new norm

I suggest recalibrating.

What once was four is fast

Becoming three then two—then what?

Seasons coalesce:

it’s either/or, all or nothing

Extremes are what they are—

What we have to show for as

Guest-occupants once stewards.

Easy to overlook the promise

We saw in ourselves.

A child learns to walk

We strove, made progress

Coming out on top—

Or so we thought.

Ever human-centric

We self-aggrandized

Anthropomorphized

And now agonize.

This is the new norm:

Believe it.

 

The Rose

for Cathy

 

Its bed—not moist, but wet—lies muddied. Puddles

unevaporated at this morning hour

lie-in-wait. A sun’s ascent translates

their decline. In due time, baked clay.

 

When the storm passed through last night, I woke up

(pluvial white noise) chasing yet again

the dream. Hardly within reach, I groped,

tried touching—breaking—the shell that encloses.

 

A memory falters. When I close my eyes

your image wanes. A damselfly lands then leaves

my arm. Hovering—an instant in suspension—

our eyes regard the other. I marvel just how

quick things dry, tracing cracks in the

dirt. As in defiance, a rose blossoms.

 

Philip Miller has been previously published in The Rumen. He currently serves as Assistant Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Music Theory & Composition at the Ingesund School of Music, Karlstad University in Sweden. As a graduate student, he studied creative writing with David Wevill at the University of Texas, and he has worked one-on-one in a professional workshop with Matthew Limpede, publisher of Carve magazine.

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