'Hiking Down From A Hillside Sky, V: Bob Arnold

V  

(and taste it melt)

To watch this world, lend a tongue
I straighten my sweaty back
For no reason other than snow
While the flakes open bigger
Echo over the pasture
The splitting wedge & hammer
No bird call, nothing flying
Valley fog quiets everything
Thin snow falling

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Yes, there's a trick there. The whole thing here. 

I remember the first time I was just struck dumb at the obviousness of it, when Ron Silliman said in one post that our very act of writing poetry, their order, their punctuation, is an unquestioning following of convention (I'm paraphrasing freely here; and it's an old post that I can't even begin to dig up but it's something he's said in many ways over the years). It follows that where the poet strikes out along a new path, the reader must attempt to follow. This is a fairly easy inversion here, writing backwards, but I think it works well, what with the conceit or returning and everything..


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April and not one single poem or post about poetry? Not good! Put your hands up those of you doing NaPoMo.