W.D. Snodgrass Jan 5 birthday
THE LESSON


When the new year
submerges our dreams
I turn to you, W.D.
to on line poetry
with an eye rhyme
realizing there is a discovery
in which time
has not passed away
but you have grafted in
and discovered us
from our livelihoods
bordering on the edge
of night and day
bordering words rising in us
all from the ice blocks
of your past confessional
in the live form of denial
when old conventions lock us in
yet steers your time
while out of breath and smile
we are trying to reach out
over seas
to companions and poets
by teaching the lesson
that our long- suffering
is only a trial of abstention
that we will survive
in our poetic recovery
from an exiled attention.