The Downstairs Press

Poetry

Night Visits to a Wolf’s Howl

Oyster Press • Santa Barbara, CA • 1979
out of print / limited copies available from author

These poems, the first of which was occasioned by a workshop with poet Michael Dennis Browne, quite surprisingly slid out of me in a six week period in the summer of 1978.  Michael played a tape of wolves howling and asked us to write whatever the sounds surfaced in our imagination.  What came spilling out – in the snow forest / a dark door opens / and opens / stretching the gut string / from the latch bolt / fallen in the snow – was so unexpected I wanted to continue.  I got a copy of the wolves tape, and without further preparation or research, began the process of listening, surrendering, writing.

THE ELEVENTH VISIT
[for Michael Dennis Browne]

                 young boys in fur  
                 running   on four legs
                 remembering   the sting of snow
                 packed into slivers
                      between their fingers

in the snow forest
a dark door opens
and opens

keeps opening
leaves its hinges
drifts off
toward a star
centuries ago
burned out

tumbles
slow motion
through the ropes of night
stretching the gut string
from the latch bold
fallen in the snow

picks up speed
and locks itself

into light