IN WINTER, THINKING SUMMER
IN WINTER, THINKING SUMMER
By Barry Spacks
Winter austerity:
steam from the black kettle
quivers up the bones
inner fur goes white:
white bear
sniffing arctic fox
ravenous.
*
In winter we imagine
a sweatless summer
season that does not exist
where supreme events
flow on like ballet
where no meanness is
where lovers move as if underwater,
such is their ease, their
timelessness.
*
In winter, daughter Coco
paints her room’s door Chinese red,
color as deep as her hungers.
*
Clearing out the acreage,
what are these dried desire-blooms?
O, to enter you
high summer Goddess, as you enter me
till the forked tongue of your warmth
emerges from my eyes!
Eternal summer
always at the gate,
let me
let you in.
Editor’s Note: “In Winter, Thinking Summer” is classic Barry Spacks. The poem’s wistfulness and Zen-like attention to detail, its clear-eyed wisdom, remind us what a privilege it is to have a poet of Barry’s gifts living in our midst. —David Starkey, contributing editor, poetry
Originally published in the Winter 2013/14 issue of Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine. Barry Spacks passed away on January 28, 2014, while this issue was still in circulation.
« Autumn Joyce DiDonato »
