VALERIE LAWSON New Comforter   Cupped in my hand, I carry away the scent of the hollow where your shoulder meets neck, close the door on this night, drive home through cold November morning. Broad Cove wears a skim of ice, open water steams in the tidal zone between matter and energy’s mixed states. The roof of St. Mary’s church is on fire— rumor of smoke from the chimney-- at the coldest point of the day someone is awake in God’s house. Kitchen vent at the Fish Market pushes a cloud that lifts then heads out to sea carrrying smells of hot oil, potatoes and haddock. Neon signs flicker on at Penner’s, rope of mist spirals around stovepipe. Even the Canal stirs, river fog slower than the rip, rubbing along, lagging behind night. Timers click, mercury switches trip, houses warm, greet bare feet. I scrape ash from the woodstove, stack logs, set tinder, snap the fingers of the cupped hand— spark catches a curl of paper, tiny flame wraps around twigs, spreads to tongue split stove lengths, settles into a bed of coals that pushes heat out to the corners of my home.   I bring the cupped hand to my face and breathe in. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Stripe Light Band of light falls, catches jaw relaxes on chin, mingles in beard. Polar bears suck heat from the sky through colorless shafts of fur; black skin burns hotbright. Incendiary beginning. Underneath everything you are naked. Touch there, reenact wonder. Remember the way the sky bent down, stars slipped their moorings, sloshed in the bowl of night? Accelerated sun stood still, turning too fast to see, compensating trick, child’s cartoon work and graffitti-- only exaggeration can explain. How else when the dogs bark, the dust refuses to settle, the dance goes on, ponderous as continents drawing in, leaning away. We rock a decided rhythm. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Through The Notch From thirty miles away we saw the storm caught in the Notch. Fronts snag on the peaks, can’t move on until they find a gap or gather strength to push up. A skim of cloud creeps over the top of Kinsman Ridge, pours down the face of Profile Mountain. Clouds level, catch and buoy, sheets rolled in a bundle. Sun slips through above two thousand feet, sets the clouds on fire. It is a Thomas Colepainting, 19th Century grand, wilder then. Boise weathered his blizzard, slit the belly of his horse, dragged it under a ledge, and crawled inside. Cols are littered with the entrails of horses. Five miles in the mountains is a long way. Dry river beds wash clean in spring floods. Under thinnest skin mountains turn, trails disappear, blazes rubbed off, a whole face slides away to scree underfoot. Everything I know about mountains is here. Echo Lake mirrors the sky. The passing storm sugars the treetops. This is not a travelogue but a ticket stamped History, verisimilitude with clouds in the middle, the road, slopes reaching up both sides. This is the first time I haven’t brought a map.         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Life List “Birds undeniably contribute to our pleasure and standard of living...” --- Roger Tory Peterson When I was 11 years old a chickadee landed on my hand, pecked pony Omilene, cocked his head at me, picked one more kernel, then flew away. Now every chickadee I see is this child’s bird.   Life lists begin this way, peak bagging, ignoring six pages of sparrows in the guide book.   They were just too many small brown birds with the same last name. Sea gulls were easy to dismiss, ubiquitous open V of cheap Cape Cod oil paintings, my friend calls them dump ducks. Cities crawl with pigeons, sustaining themselves on wasted lunches, persistant groupies bobbing along sidewalks humming coo-roo-coo. There are no codependant birdfeeders in my yard.   Flowers please the hummingbirds.   The pond pumps mosquitos into hungry mouths.   Blue and red berries take care of the rest. I leave them alone and they bring joy on the wing. You can claim whole species from a single bird. I like to think  I’m  making friends. Some people call this anthropomorphism, ascribing human attributes to a being or thing not human, especially a deity.   A touchy feely science, it fuels endless debates. If you believe an animal has no emotions, you can nail a dog to a board and slit open its chest to watch its brutish heart beat. A family of Baltimore Orioles moved into the pear tree nextdoor, wove a pouch from tinsel and kite string, called it home. They were tigers on the wing, a  tropical splash on our green landscape. There is an Audobon print of a pair of cardinals on myparent’s living room wall. Audobon dreamed continually of birds, captured their images in priceless folios. He painted the passenger pigeon, once abundant.   He peeled their bodies and arranged them in artful poses before painting them. In old age his mind took the wings of dementia. The other day on the way to work, I saw a hawk. Coming home, I saw an owl. It takes courage to head out every day, wisdom to come home. The first bird I saw when I moved into my cottage was a cardinal. There is a prophecy of birds, a whole religion based on species and flight. This study has given us the words augury and auspicious. The soothsayer makes his predictions blind, eyes bound, the bird’s flight described by a watcher.   A family of swans rested here a few weeks.   One brilliant June day, a tern exploded out of the pond where the fish had been feeding. During a September storm, a Great Blue Heron, ancient mariner, circled, flying through sheets ofwind-driven rain.   The heron is out there now as I edit this poem.   And lately at dawn and dusk, I hear an uncertain giggle— the loon, jester long lost, barely afloat, slap stroking thetruth. Robins bring spring. Blue jays scold.  Crows bear witness, sound the alarm. A pelican slathered in spilled crude oil will soon die. Eggs influenced by DDT are too soft, collapse, produce no new hatchlings. A life list shouldn’t hide in the pages of a book. A life list is the shared experience of the phoenix and the paper crane. Look—over there.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ to more poetry and photographty by Valerie Lawson

back to