Beauty is Imperfection

A Poem

By Eric Rasmussen

 

Hoar ice splinters rattle,

Around the turkey warrens

Off the saltbox barn

In the Green Mountain, pumpkin vines

Smashed reds and yellows

Under the tongue

Of new frost

 

An alert nostril

Discerns the paper birch trees

The city dweller

Cold on his ice chains

Searching to find the brazen keys

A finger snaps against the icy thumb

Bone fraternal snow flakes

You pantomime old age

And slowly go inside,

make a cup,

vermouth, Old Tom gin and rye.

 

His wife removes his boots.

While outside the window

A marten fighting for bread with a weasel.

Cheap doggerel growls

A comic burlesque

Across the wood tableau

and the coffee on his desk

 

Spring doesn’t come early

Nature never shows its pettifrock too soon

No pout of cleavage, no flash of gam

 

Man walks in

Logs alight,

Effervesced and drinking,

Popping from the gold and green splits

While fast green grouses and big hearted tits

Remember how segmented ants bullied the tree

Sea, air and land,

Grass, grove and lea

 

Remember when she walked these halls

And rolled the cat mint into balls

Washed your ears and skimmed the soup

for winter’s necessity

 

Would the wood come

Closer

And open her yet again

Would she be a five or an eight or a ten

How many yards of night

Do you walk

To reach yourself again?

 

Her damp you will inherit tonight

But not ever keep;

Without the softness to fight

Or the strength to weep