by Gerald Friedman
A Northerner Faces East
For Frank
In winter, wherever I could find
its beams
in houses, hotels, office towers—
like a pilgrim seeking Mecca,
I used to tilt my face
to the slanted sun,
my eyes closed so even eyelids
warmed a little.
As I grow old, I crave
a complement of senses,
face gently drawn toward
the solar rays,
eyes wide to watch shafts
of light stream between pine trunks,
tawny as foxes,
and lines of shadows
penciled on new snow.
My footfalls on the sparkling powder—
brush, brush, hush.
Pause to receive
how our bodies breathe,
these trees and me.
What millions of breaths have I
not noticed, my brother whispered
just before his last one.
Merryn Rutledge’s work has been widely published; a book is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Raised in the American South, Merryn now lives on the New England coast, where she also writes book reviews, dances, sings, and plays among the tall pines. Poem-writing is Merryn’s third career, after teaching literature and creative writing and then running a US-based leadership development consulting firm. Merryn is at Twitter and on the Web: merrynpoetry.org
Gerald Friedman teaches physics and math in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. His poetry has appeared in various journals, and his photographs and photo-poetry hybrids have appeared in Santa Fe Literary Review, DailyHaiga, and contemporary haibun online. You can see some of his writing at https://jerryfriedman.wixsite.com/my-site-2 and more photographs at Flickr.