Sally Rosen Kindred
Prayer with Oaks and Visual Snow Syndrome
The snow in my head is touching
all the trees in the woods, touching the twilight bark
that falls like the braids
of women. The snow in my head rubs its faces
into my face, then turns and rubs its faces
on the gray cheeks of moss
and then laces the brown oak leaves with its not-there
belief in itself, its not-there tears
rinsed by cold.
The snow is tasting the word God
again, and shimmering down
all over the moon:
it alights on the rims of the juncos’ wings.
It blinks on the crocus that turns toward me,
and on the late leaves that turn to sky.
The snow between me and the world
tastes like God, like
the word God
salted and multiplied into ten thousand blacklit tongues
singing over the trees like ghosts
of thirst and relief.
Sometimes it darkens but the doctor says
this is benign, and the crows
made of frost say wing-blade and bone
and the prayer says flaw, flaw, flaw--
the snow in my head sings
and its furling breath, its stripped wings are the mistakes
of Creation.
The snow between me
and what I believe
should make me lonely,
and Lord, it does. It paws
with its icy let, let, and prays
in my throat, a blessing white with thorns. Tell me, my God,
in the million silver eyes of night, why such a blossom
flies into so many pieces, why you
are small and cold
and keep falling away.
Sally Rosen Kindred’s third book of poems is Where the Wolf, winner of the 2020 Diode Book Prize, forthcoming from Diode Editions in 2021. Poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Kenyon Review Online.
Return to January 2021 Edition
The snow in my head is touching
all the trees in the woods, touching the twilight bark
that falls like the braids
of women. The snow in my head rubs its faces
into my face, then turns and rubs its faces
on the gray cheeks of moss
and then laces the brown oak leaves with its not-there
belief in itself, its not-there tears
rinsed by cold.
The snow is tasting the word God
again, and shimmering down
all over the moon:
it alights on the rims of the juncos’ wings.
It blinks on the crocus that turns toward me,
and on the late leaves that turn to sky.
The snow between me and the world
tastes like God, like
the word God
salted and multiplied into ten thousand blacklit tongues
singing over the trees like ghosts
of thirst and relief.
Sometimes it darkens but the doctor says
this is benign, and the crows
made of frost say wing-blade and bone
and the prayer says flaw, flaw, flaw--
the snow in my head sings
and its furling breath, its stripped wings are the mistakes
of Creation.
The snow between me
and what I believe
should make me lonely,
and Lord, it does. It paws
with its icy let, let, and prays
in my throat, a blessing white with thorns. Tell me, my God,
in the million silver eyes of night, why such a blossom
flies into so many pieces, why you
are small and cold
and keep falling away.
Sally Rosen Kindred’s third book of poems is Where the Wolf, winner of the 2020 Diode Book Prize, forthcoming from Diode Editions in 2021. Poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Kenyon Review Online.
Return to January 2021 Edition