Dead winter is my season, when trees pose
stiff and naked for the camera,
leafless, but not breathless—
with breath held
in for a moment, they stand
etched in to the sky. It’s comforting
that they never move.
And I’m beginning to think
that there’s beauty even in this,

in these still trees, and this white
moon cut and pasted
to the black paper night,
this moon that never grows or shrinks.
Everything in its light holds
its breath.
And let me tell you
there is more life in this still
held breath than in the madness of spring,
because for just a moment
movement toward death is stopped.

Who knows if we will ever
be able to gather our strength
to take in another breath.
Hold it,
hold it while you can.

Sheryl St. Germain
from her book Let It Be a Dark Roux: New and Selected Poems
Autumn House Press, 2007

used with permission of the poet

Suppose we don’t need sound to talk—
suppose that nutcase Swedenborg
was right that angels banter not

in language but in balls of thought
wafting about like pollen spores
because they don’t need sound to talk?

Think how in dreams our dialogue
flashes from mind to mind before
it’s voiced, communicated not

in language, but its building blocks:
Chinese-poem metaphors
ideogrammed to the brain, not talked.

Who needs the langue d’oeil or d’oc
when we (like modern troubadours)
strum on lutelike keyboards not

quite sentences or finished thoughts
but runic clusters, bluesy chords
understood (though apart from talk)
like angel banter they can’t be not.

Julie Kane
from her book Rhythm & Booze
University of Illinois Press, 2003

used with permission of the poet