​

This Happens

with a line from Santoka

 

1

This happens:

snow falls,

falls again, roads

drift deeply white, then stop

altogether,

their forward motion

silliness. This happens:

one day you love someone,

then two you love die

the next day, then one is born

you begin to love.

Baby boy is bombed

in Gaza. This happens. 

This happens again and again.

Snow falls,

all is covered, all

is revealed. This happens:

Birth-

days, death days, on

and on and on,

snow falls

and everything stops,

thank God. Then

starts up a little

just to show it can,

just to show

it goes on forever.

 

2

This happens:

snow falls

and suddenly

I am in love again

with this world.

 

3

This happens:

"Within life and death

snow falls ceaselessly."

 

4

This happens:

the snow falls all day,

mother,

you would have sat

in your flowered chair

in your flowered robe

and tried to take its picture.

 

5

This happens:

snow falls all day.

My friend continues

to lose his mind.

Bombs continue to fall

on hospitals.

Lindens turned their slim back

on it all.

​

​

​

 

J​​im Moore's most recent book, Enter, was released recently by Graywolf.  His  previous collections have won the Minnesota Book Award four times. He lives in Minneapolis and Spoleto, Italy.  His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and others magazines.

 

​

​