Poem of the Day: North of Boston

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1 / 4 / 2015

Poem of the Day: North of Boston BY MAGGIE DIETZ Hoarfrost coats and cuffs the playing fields, a heyday of glistening. So there's hope in my throat as I walk across them to the woods with my chest flung open, spilling its coins. The light so bright I can hear it, a silver tone like a penny whistle. It's fall, so I'm craving pine cones. Hundreds of maples the color of bulldozers!                        But something strange is going on: the trees are tired of meaning, sick of providing mystery, parallels, consolation. "Leave us alone," they seem to cry, with barely energy for a pun. The muscular river crawls on its belly in a maple coat of mail. Muddy and unreflective, it smells as if it too could use some privacy. The sumac reddens like a face, holding out its velvet pods almost desperately. The Queen Anne's Lace clicks in the wind. A deaf-mute milkweed foaming at the mouth. Back at the field I look for what I didn't mean to drop. The grass is green.                             Okay, Day, my host, I want to get out of your house. Come on, Night, with your twinkly stars and big dumb moon. Tell me don't show me, and wipe that grin off your face. Maggie Dietz, "North of Boston" from Perennial Fall. Copyright © 2006 by Maggie Dietz.  Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press. Source: Perennial Fall (The University of Chicago Press, 2006) MAGGIE DIETZ Biography  More poems by this author