Kelly Terwilliger

Real Life 

As if weather, I am suddenly happy,

or suddenly sad.

It comes like

drifting light and shadow on a day

when clouds are moving. Like music

passing, changing.

Again, a fleeting sense

that I have been busy for a long time

with inconsequential things.

That soon I will return to my real life—

one of those lost ones, almost forgotten,

that still hovers just over there, out

inside. It will be such a relief to return,

—to finally step through. I remember

yesterday’s swirl of water, and the seal

dozing under the surface, just under the surface,

its pale underwater body

rocking, slightly. I can see it rise,

slightly, and break the surface, just for a moment,

and breathe. In that other life, what seems like the real one,

someone I’d forgotten I was waiting for

will be returning soon. Yes, in a moment,

the sound of conversation, a murmured

rise and fall of familiar intonation,

or perhaps the house

will be quiet, a quiet

one enters like an embrace

because everything is here.

 

Dressed in a Coat with Buttons

I’m waiting for the horse in his long red coat

with silver buttons.

He will come with his head down, because

he is remembering by heart the song going over and over

inside him. When he lifts a hoof, one wide sleeve

will fall open, like the song’s voice. And then the next sleeve,

the next step, answering, joining in. Who else will enter the choir?

Maybe the horse will come alone, the red coat swaying

with notes written for a strange new year.

The children could remember yesterday, more or less,

but all they could hope for was snow,

softness drifting down.

And afterward, the hoofprints

like small melting buckets,

or cups, or saucers.

 

December Night

I want a kind of exalted consciousness, maybe even

a word for word translation that harnesses the whole month

suffering and playfulness, everyday objects and activities

riffing with midwinter, its endless obituaries

listen—there’s singing now, I’d like it to be some angelic choir

at once fresh and very old like the fog in the trees looked

when I tried to pin down morning’s depth and texture.

 

Sometimes when I wake in the night

my body aches as if it had been somewhere else and needed to be

put back together here, in this now.

Waking, when the hour is not an hour of this world

the mind goes running like an anxious dog let out,

hoping to please, into the trees all around

 

light green, darker and greyer, purple black and dark green,

feather and white and green,

yellow and yellow green, white and whitely green,

black and greeny-black and copper and stone. Blue.

Darker blue. Brown. Reddish brown.

 

Last night, a noise.

What could I do? take what you want

just leave me my mind—

but I remembered the honey frames from the old hive outside.

Maybe it was a bear. It could be a bear.

I wanted a bear’s heavy shape

moving just outside the door, brushing the window,

brushing the night air

the bear’s body close at hand.

I went down in the dark

but there was no bear. Only the rooms of the house

standing around me

in a new kind of emptiness

I was no longer trying to fill. Just then I went beyond

waiting for that other life to resume.

I went back to bed and felt

for the first time in a long time quiet.