Sojourn

Sojourn

Michael Dechane

I could watch this snow and abide for the rest
of the pared night falling into the bucket
of light the streetlamp brought out precisely
for this reason. It reminds me of the way
I love to see a salty crew of workers
build or unbuild things, with the unfeigned ease
which comes at last ten thousand times after
the uncertain step, those first clumsy strokes.
Attending the snow’s arrival relieves me
of building my own work inside tonight.
How kindly the world lays aside my tools
and restores to me some open hands as
the scene in this window becomes a window
for seeing again the beloved face
of a lake I am forever still beside.
Over its dark depths a breeze in the morning
would lift tiny peaks for the light to play on.
The dazzle in the elemental is
inexhaustible and waiting for me
both capturing and refracting my gaze
beside the lake, before this snow, somewhere
I am too drowsy to imagine now
quieted by the sight of what descends
unasked to make anyway a blanket.

---

Michael Dechane
Poet

Michael Dechane received his MFA in poetry from Seattle Pacific University. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Southern Poetry Review, Cumberland River Review, Apalachee Review, and Image.

Photography by Conor Sweetman