Poem and Music Interlude (for the end, delayed, of winter)

At Verb Café

Too soon to tell, I am missing
a person best described
as a warm room on a cold day.
To miss: to crave present someone
absent, to feel luckier in solitude,
to be excused for talking to oneself
and poetry. The horizon is lit
for snow, while somewhere else
is California. To travel: to slow time
by dropping a valise into
routine’s metal works, to forget
where you are for a moment
in the morning. At the next
table, a man and woman spark
conversation like a casual
cigarette. To meet: to skate, to laugh
out loud in church. Out the window
a man stops the pedals
of a bicycle and stands straddling
it in gloves printed with skeleton
hands. Across the street a funeral
home has set up shop beneath
clean rooms with plants
in the windows. To live above
a funeral home: to live.
White flakes begin to float,
to descend, to pair and part
and charm the momentary air.

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Jolie Holland..."Goodbye California":



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And The National, who are touring with Colin Stetson, one of the first people I ever met in Williamsburg (Christmas Eve 2005)..."Green Gloves" (in Central Park, last year):