Bin Ramke
Cloud (Cont.)
I asked my brother is it possible
to stand on a cloud, he said no. I said,
if we flew in an airplane into a cloud,
and I could open the window, could I
take a piece of the cloud,
maybe put it in my pocket? He said,
your pocket would get wet,
you would having nothing but a wet
spot on your shirt
when the plane landed.
I did maybe about that same time
consider keeping snow in the freezer.
Snow was a part of a cloud fallen, as was rain,
as was a wet shirt forgotten on the line
as a thunderstorm performed.
Though I had not then seen snow.
Living in Weather
It is an economy unfolding
of leaf of leaves into trees leaving of winter
and agonies of spring; fold and unfold
reading and reading leaves leaves
the mind implicated in its body, world:
it thinks, wild the epigraphy:
they shall beat their coins into cookware
pennies flattened serve roof repair
otherwise wilderness catches calligraphy
snares a bitter mind among mountains.
The loud clouds come falling
from air from the mountains.
Falling air and fair weathers
wash us of our sins any season.
Here how it happens—a measure:
the beetle imago crawling two
dots on its back shiny as dew
under the murderous eye of sun
I of sunlight sizzling the morning as
as and we wait again a health. For health.
Explicit at the Bedside
1
To maneuver calamity
calmly
a boat moored to the
window continues
(yet she did suffer,
not dream, in her bed
was cared for but
yet did die)
another escape—a
walk through a maze not
thinking it a maze at
the time at the time
a necessary range of
baffles—no
knowing why until a
final turn and a tall
wall with a tall door
and some voice or
writing named a country
and opened a door
to severe landscape
unpopular place
Ò...a substance growing
on hills in the East, candied
by the sun, and of
diverse coloursÓ (Christopher Smart)
(I had wishes numbering
three I had
none beyond three
childlike
as a well-known dilemma
I lost count
near two, counting
heavily against
mourners, watchers at
death beds,
2
those who live among
weathers the clouds
loudly proclaim
familiar decline), a line
or border breathing of
boundaries away new
engagements, engorgement,
air and vapors;
who wouldnÕt wish
better such is/as earth inherited
full already when we
took possession air
and water and rock
ready-made and which
was it brought me to
this bedside beside
counting of breaths
counting down counting on
but this was my dream
of water at the window
sill the slightest wave
would wash over into
my room my room the end
of a maze of rooms
a new skill developed a
various hope a
discovered paper in a
wallet oneÕs own
numbers unreadable
possibly telephone
possibly proof of a
small theorem overlooked
by all who came before,
a conjecture turned
real, readable as if I
had been given those
3
wishes wisely held
closely passed on.
Whether the butterfly
is happier than the
caterpillar because it
is more beautiful, whether
the child is happier
than the mother because
closer to precedent
death (not subsequent),
whether if I spoke to
her in that manner
would she hear? She did
not answer.
Care is a bondage,
bandage? bond
ÒThe air was tiny./ The
air would not do.Ó (Anne Sexton)
A narrow strip of cloud
to clot the sunlight
cloud the afternoon,
protect the one who suffers.
Lie next to her
in her sickbed
careless. A kind of care
is this given modernly,
first the pillow
then the body cools.
ÒHere endsÓ or
abbreviation of explicitus
est liber, the small
scroll unrolled no
distinction between
folding and rolling,
misfolded, (prion)
Clean sheets neatly
stacked on the bed.
When I returned.
for Melba Guidry Ramke,
1917-2006