Nothing



"There are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night."

        Marie de Rubutin-Chantal

Nothing knew the time as she did,

but that was all she knew.

She stood at the window and watched

as snow clouds stole past like heavy-laden thieves

through a sky where nothing could hide

or be hidden,

where light steps accumulated through the hours

to vanish later in the sun.

She looked in on the sleeping children

and found them grown,

their heads and feet leagues apart,

their comforters thrown off

in their wild thrashing rest.

For each light that died, two lit up,

yet darkness endured.

So much labor led nowhere. So many words

led only to silence.

Nothing could be done at such an hour

but even that was more than she could do.

conniewanek.com - 2008/07/10

Welcome to the new conniewanek.com

Connie Wanek has been writing poems since childhood. She is the author of two books, with a third forthcoming, and she has been the recipient of several awards, including the Willow Poetry Prize and the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. Most recently, she was named a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress by United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. She lives in the country outside Duluth, Minnesota, but often finds herself in a green tent somewhere in the Boundary Waters wilderness.