DeWitt Clinton

Big Fat Snowflakes Predicted, Red and White Lights
Pass By Us, As If Everyone Knows What To Do About
This Moment, Knowing Few Really Care About Dusk

Night is near, and it’s still February, some of our friends
Are as blue as you could ever imagine, and though not
Many, some are just terribly cheerful, making it all that
Much more difficult to comprehend why does anyone
Have to put up with this.  We could of course step out
Into the cold but most of us will wonder why, why are
We out here, it’s cold, let me back in, yes, I’m a dog.
And that’s our life, isn’t it, the need to chase a ball
Or curl up and hide behind the sofa pillows as any cat
Knows how to do, quite religiously I might add.  Now
You’re wondering, aren’t you, so what’s wrong, oh,
Really nothing, just watching the color of the sky
Turn from a sunny winter day, to a sullen, dark,
Perhaps even with fat wet flakes falling so slowly,
We stick out our tongues, yes, you’ve done this,
No? Why are you still here, keeping your thick tongue
In like that all day when everyone, all right almost
Everyone, loves to open lips in hopes of wet lips
Inviting you in, and who, who in this world wouldn’t
Want to enter into such moist and you know what
Lovely sensations one can make with a tongue
Exploring just about every possible soft surface
That would make anyone’s pulse pick up a bit,
Breathe a little more deeply, sighing with a little
More delight, and of course moving into each
Other so that the night isn’t quite as lonely as
It really is, for the night’s here, it’s getting darker
By the minute, and nobody needs to weep about
That.

 

“Many people are missing. What am I looking for at my age?  Happiness I guess.”
--Donald Traxler

This will be complicated.  We’re not in our 20’s
like we once were, so our options are quite limited. 
Of course we can scroll through pictures, and leave
a note, and that works out quite well for some, but
probably not for us.  It makes sense to find someone,
but we won’t know who that someone is as we’re still
thinking about who was with us for so very long, longer
than we imagined and none of us imagined we’d still
be here on earth, and someone else out there in space who
was once with us, close to us, is not here, but there, but no
one knows where there is, and never will. Some will call
this the great conundrum.  Yes, find something that makes
no sense as that will be the start of starting all over again,
maybe with someone, but there’s no reason to think, at our
age, this would ever happen, ever, but it might, it might,
but while this may not make sense, it will, if one desires a
little bit of what the Old Ones called eudaimonia, or just
finding what no one in the world would ever imagine,
say peace of mind, such sweetness at this late hour, so
this is just what we’re talking about, the reaching out, a
hand on hand, and if one or both of us is lucky, we’ll find
that happiness only if we stay in the moment, paying
attention, in wonder, thrilled, just thrilled, we’ve found
something, and at the very least, at least some of us are
still not missing.

 

DeWitt Clinton’s recent book collections include: At the End of the War (Kelsay Books, 2018), By A Lake Near A Moon: Fishing with the Chinese Masters (Is A Rose Press, 2020), and Hello There (Word Poetry, 2021) which was awarded the 2022 Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.  A new collection is scheduled for a Fall 2025 release.