The 2River View 17.2 (Winter 2013)
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J. Rodney Karr

Kaleidoscope

Now the lovers come,
the road too long
for talking, the talking
too long for the road.
He grips the wheel
and squints at dusk,
searching for deer
that may suddenly
cross. She passes time
observing beautiful
forms, reducing love
in a cylinder of mirrors.
He is only a pleasure
in its design. She forgets
the deer, the whole
day better forgotten
in its own distortion
as chiseled sun drops
behind splintering trees,
as diamonds of horizon
turn with each turn
of her hand, as snow
crumbles like crystals.
Beauty on a thousand
axes collides with her eyes.
Inertia, like love, brings it
forward. Deer pass, gone.
Darkness helps them see.

Snow

makes us humble.
Notice how it stares.

It defies who we are.
Say it’s beautiful and die
after sliding uncontrollably.

Curse it and each flake
will be a lover to your hair,
brow and tongue, an angel
spread across the ground,
a man in useless clothes.

Sled and sleigh, but do not
give it tribute. It is not god,
idol, or nature and can’t care
to be proclaimed a day off
or that very special white Christmas.

And do not give it scorn.
It will disappear. It will
come back. If not today
then tonight. If not
this year then next, heavy
and sad, light and gay,
swallowing architecture
and landscape, changing
your perception of palm trees.

And when it turns dirty,
don’t blame the snow.

Blame your audacity to call it pure.

J. Rodney Karr holds an MFA for the University of Arkansas. His poems have been published in Hayden's Ferry Review, Iowa Review, and, most recently, dirtcakes. He currently lives in Denmark. contact