Gautam Verma
Mid-Winter
You may confidently
regale me with snow:
as often as I strode through summer
shoulder to shoulder with the nuilberrv tree
its youngest leaf shrieked.
–Paul Celan, Atemwende
inward press of space
world’s foreshortened: slow drift
of snow flake like chalk dust gathering
to whiteness
white daisies wild
in a field of white
each
its own immensity
of sky bloated
bulging like a tent
*
dust gathers in the wake of
passing cars
next the anemone
vein blue and varicose
we grow
vast incrementally
in inclement
weather
*
mid-winter’s dream of summer
dream not unlike the
end of Fellini’s
Amacord
old ghost in a mattress rolled io ricordo
up in matrimonio di
the cellar house guests you io ricordo
me light that is campo ventoso
heat’s haze unassumng steady still io ricordo
season’s dance and the dance
of the years
crocuses once more
once more
tree’s latticed shade
over cars spit-smoldering
in parking lots
*
time through the tree reveries
rivers rivers are
and the signs it weaves reveries
leave-off appear
and disappear
and floe
*
through the open window
surge of traffic over the broad
highway unseen
surfs and
surfaces in the ear
we hear
(for the wave is not a-part
but of the very
underbelly of the sea)
snow
crunching underfoot
like small stones
*
Sea circle
(The sea is circled
Circle Small
Circle
and sways
River run
ragged in the valley
peaceably
Hole hollow
Socket
White bone upon its plant-like stem)
Islands and islands
of small white stones
*
trees: their woodedness:
unleaved
the branches quiver
(faintly they quiver)
infinitely
patient infinitely
other
Guatam Verma grew up in Bombay, in India, and is currently finishing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Denver. He has poems appearing in Folio. His previous publications include poems in Envoi (UK), Poetry Digest, Manifold, Mangrove, and other small magazines.