Twenty-four Logics in Memory of Lee Hickman

The bend in the river followed us for days and above us the sun doubled and redoubled its claims Now we are in a house with forty-four walls and nothing but doors Outside the trees, chokecherries, mulberries and oaks are cracking like limbs We can do nothing but listen or so someone claims, the Ice Man perhaps, all enclosed in ice though the light has been shortening our days and coloring nights the yellow of hay, scarlet of trillium, blue of block ice Words appear, the texture of ice, with messages etched on their shells: Minna 1892, Big Max and Little Sarah, This hour ago everyone watched as the statues fell Enough of such phrases and we’ll have a book Enough of such books and we’ll have mountains of ice enough to balance our days with nights enough at last to close our eyes