the poet exiled
wakes up mornings
dresses in furs against the cold
wraps head and neck in a scarf
steps outside into the breeze
that knifes right through what he wears
he shivers, pounds his hands, coughs
asks the peasants questions they think stupid
but struggle to answer, tongues and brains
wrestling with new thoughts in old words
the poet exiled
never tells them what to do
wouldn't know if someone had left him a list of instructions
and so the peasants tend the land
exactly as they always have
blessed with land so fertile
they almost never have to think
or need some master's more informed word
the poet goes back inside
grateful to get back out of the wind
fusses with the fire and keeps it going
unaware of flue or coals or ashes
every other day a young woman
comes in and surreptitiously watches him
while she cleans up a two-days kitchen
resets the flue for today's weather
sweeps ashes out of the fireplace
into the slot where they'll be caught
for later making into soap
after she finishes she reports
to a council of peasant women
the poet exiled
reads books, she says, and sometimes magazines
he strides back and forth in the living room
the only room big enough to hold his paces
then hurries to the study and hurls himself at the desk
and for an hour moves paper from the clean stack to the used
scribbling only down the middle in marks she cannot read
he reads some more, paces again, then dashes back to desk
he is quite mad, she guesses, and the women nod
the poet exiled
sometimes smokes a pipe and gazes at the sky
so full of stars he wonders where they all come from
surely this is not the same sky his city knows
he remembers conversations
now and then almost cries for missing
words lightly tossed among his friends
the game of it, the thoughts building
that later would rearrange into his poems
his work is harder here without the play
and nothing he has tried elicits conversation with the peasants
not as he knew it in the city
the poet exiled
wonders if a year or three out here in the motherland
will rob him of how words play into poems
so far not, he assures himself
and rereads what he wrote this week
yes, so far not
the poet exiled
puts down his pipe and writes another page
sometimes adds five before he quits
struggling against the shadows from the lanterns
at last goes to bed and sleeps
exhausted by his work against what's so
and lost in demands of what he doesn't know
