I recently introduced Camden's Kristen Lindquist to Poem of the Week, and while this column will be filled with variety and diversity, I can't quite resist sharing an apt meditation on the season by Lindquist before we move on to other poets. It may feel like autumn is behind us as we settle into December, but with three weeks left before the winter solstice, we still have a bit to go as we start to embrace our "hunger to store light." This poem can be found nestled in Lindquist's chapbook Invocation to the Birds, which was part of the delightful Walking to Windward series featuring New England poets.
Fall
These last days provoke
a summing up, a desire
for strength before the snow,
a hunger to store light
in our mouths
and on our brown skin,
not in words,
not in imagination,
but in something we can hold.
Acorns piled along the road.
Feeble touch of sun
on long hair tangled
by wind. Single oak leaf
twisting into the hand.
Not the chipmunk
smashed in the road,
but the smoldering fire
spread across the mountain.
Not the losses to come,
but the geese unspooling
their ancient calls
across the daylit moon.
- Kristen Lindquist
From An Invocation to Birds, Vol III in the series Walking to Windward: Poets of New England (ed. Cicely Buckley)
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