May 18: A Walk, New Poem, "Between Cross and Snow"

Just got done with a walk along the shores of Lake Superior.  No, I'm not going to start quoting "The Song of Hiawatha."  It was a lovely afternoon, with temperatures near 80 degrees.  My wife and I had time to kill while our daughter was at her dance class, so we went for a stroll.  It really feels like summer has arrived.  Thank God.

S-U-M-M-E-R!!

I promised a new poem tonight, and I am going to make good on that promise.  The sonnet I wrote is in response to the Longfellow poem I discussed yesterday.  In my poem, I'm trying to somehow find entry into Longfellow's poem.  I think I found both Longfellow and myself.  I think.  I'd be interested to hear my disciples' opinions.  It's still too fresh for me to have any objectivity.

Saint Marty needs to get his butt moving.  His daughter is done with dance.

Between Cross and Snow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Cross of Snow”

How does Longfellow contain years
Of grief in fourteen lines, words
Black, unsubstantial as the upward
Lift of ash or reflections in mirrors

Of black swans at midnight? No tears
Fall with his rhymes. With alphabetic shards,
He combs the smoke and sear from a beard
White as whale foam. He still hears,

After all this changeless time, her voice
Echo through sun-defying ravines
In the West, through the shadows

Between cross and snow. In this holy space,
I find my daughter, running in evergreens,
Climbing. Away. Up. Up. To where woman grows.