All this festooning of eaves
and downspouts! Chimneys. Shingles.
Every edge. Who leaves behind
breath, like a calling card
fished from the smock
of a wizened artist, with sable brushes
strapped to each hand, faceting
gutters and sycamore trees,
even that elderly, ivied tentacle?
Who speed-rimes antennae
and trims the satellite dish
with crystal-work? Be it vapor or ice dam,
even the unraveled lace of a snail,
all that was liquid, in the beginning,
resurfaces, somewhere:
the rivers of Eden, the tears of Christ.
-
Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens (Poeima/Cascade) and an award-winning chapbook, Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. “Frost” is part of House of 49 Doors: entries in a life, Laurie Klein’s forthcoming poetry collection from The Poeima Poetry Series (Cascade, 2024). A past winner of the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred and a Pushcart nominee, Laurie’s work has also appeared in The Christian Century, Ascent, First Things, EcoTheo Review, Presence, Relief, Dappled Things, Saint Katherine Review, The Windhover, Ruminate, Ekstasis, and elsewhere. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and blogs monthly at lauriekleinscribe.com.
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