Wilderness Interface Zone

I would say I feel cold but no
That’s not right—I feel dark.
Winter has begun glooming bone
Half so bright with fire as once cheered.
This arm and shoulder upon which I fell—
They make a rough fit.  Especially
I feel it there. My eyes rummage
Squat days for glints. In my chest
There’s a catch, these lungs losing
Appetite, thin instants off each breath.

Spring brightens nearly too late, me panting
For light.  Then with summer the full gasp at last
Revives one more solstice in the blood.

In my high and thieving youth
I gorged on the sun’s confections—
Cherries, peaches, apples—
That spring’s flower and summer’s
Hot honeyed shine bent
To my fingertips.

Now I hoard against the lightshed
Of winter equinox fruit
Others pick.  But these run out
And the sun gets no better.
Oblique, if not of its own angle,
From slants of storm.

When we think of resurrection,
(And we must think of it—
God’s Will or No
Science writhes from that grave
Cocoon toward winged athanasia),
Should that day of first glory break
On winter’s dawn and I by some
Unforeseen chance am called,
I shall not answer by any name.
There will not be enough holy apples
Growing in God’s mind to give me rise.
Cute Science will not tease me past the snow.

But for whatever glory ascends toward summer’s spire,
With the wisdom of a potato in a root cellar
My strands will feel end and beginning
Peel apart and the earth lurch beneath wing
Beats of swallows working airy theorems
Across the blue board. “That,” I will say,
“That is the word I lay wanting,”
And up I’ll come from must with earthwise toads.

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*Non-contest submission*