Don Ammons
West Jutland
The Vestjysk sky! Blue! Chrome! Gray! The colour
of lead. Sometimes all four in the space
of five minutes; falling, falling, falling
to a low horizon. Sun! Rain! Rainbows!
Single arched! Double arched! Triple arched!
Columned rainbows; stationary, holding up the sky,
now racing shadows across the tundra.
And the Vestjysk wind! Coming in hard
off the North Sea, pulling, pushing, hustling
clouds inland; skipping surf spume through the maze
of dunes, across heath, moor, meadow and field,
finally hanging the thin foam napkins, now
dirty gray, on hedges of wild rose.
Facing this flux I stand in contradiction;
calm, settled, the New World restlessness
I was born to stilled. By day I string
together words netted from sea and fjord,
collected off heath, pulled down from sky,
snatched from the wind. Come night my wife,
of this northern kingdom, holds close and warms
this always cold southerner. We talk
of words and days, her sketches and oils,
laugh at something one of the kids said,
did; or we lay silent listening
to the house creaking; and the outside sighs
of West Jutland being, living and breathing.
of lead. Sometimes all four in the space
of five minutes; falling, falling, falling
to a low horizon. Sun! Rain! Rainbows!
Single arched! Double arched! Triple arched!
Columned rainbows; stationary, holding up the sky,
now racing shadows across the tundra.
And the Vestjysk wind! Coming in hard
off the North Sea, pulling, pushing, hustling
clouds inland; skipping surf spume through the maze
of dunes, across heath, moor, meadow and field,
finally hanging the thin foam napkins, now
dirty gray, on hedges of wild rose.
Facing this flux I stand in contradiction;
calm, settled, the New World restlessness
I was born to stilled. By day I string
together words netted from sea and fjord,
collected off heath, pulled down from sky,
snatched from the wind. Come night my wife,
of this northern kingdom, holds close and warms
this always cold southerner. We talk
of words and days, her sketches and oils,
laugh at something one of the kids said,
did; or we lay silent listening
to the house creaking; and the outside sighs
of West Jutland being, living and breathing.
Page(s) 13
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