Keith Althaus is the author of Rival Heavens (1993, Provincetown Arts Press). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, and numerous other magazines and journals. He has worked at many jobs, including loft renovation, tree planting, and clerical work, and now runs a gallery with his wife, the painter Susan Baker. They live in North Truro, Massachusetts.

 Portrait by Richard Schiff

MARCH 

So many times
we’ve been buried
and risen again.
This coffin lid pushing
back the white earth,
compressing the fallen hours
that have robbed past
and future and left just
the frozen now.
An ancient script
dislodges from a branch,
its meaning
read midair
races to the heart
where it’s like
the words of a dream.
Between mud and snow
we must decipher
the message of the row
of buds, brave souls
lifting their helmets
above the trench.
Sunlight on the hill
is applause. A child
finds the puzzle pieces
of the pond
require a larger hand.
The snow falls,
once again
the world
becomes a page.
 

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All Rights Reserved.