November 13: Black-and-White Sadness, Judith Minty, 7 from "Fall"

For some reason, I am drawn to older poetry collections this month, books that I have read and reread many times.  This week, it's Judith Minty's Yellow Dog Journal, which still ranks in the top five of my all-time favorites. 

I am melancholy today.  Perhaps it's the coming of winter.  The gray and slush and cold.  The darkening of the sky at five o'clock in the afternoon.  I found myself at home alone this afternoon, after a doctor's appointment, lying on my bed with the lights out.  The silence, which I usually welcome, was oppressive.  My mind wandered back and forth over my life--births and deaths, successes and failures. 

By the time I climbed out of bed, I was steeped in black-and-white sadness.  Haven't been able to shake it off yet.  I'm sitting in my office at the university, a stack of papers in front of me, filled with a kind of dread that has nothing to do with grading.

My life seems to be sliding by way too fast.  I'm feeling a little out of control, and, when I'm like this, I want to hibernate.  Shut myself away from the world and just read and read, write and write.  That's all.

Or maybe Saint Marty just needs some spiked eggnog. 

7 from "Fall" of Yellow Dog Journal

by:  Judith Minty

Sitting on the porch.
Can't tell if I was dozing or reading,
the eye had wandered from words,
turned inward,
so that I only saw it
after the chipmunk's scream.

The hawk spread its wings,
so close I might have touched his feathers,
and lifted the chipmunk up
out of the clearing
and made no sound.