I'd like to read a couple of poems from Palm Reading again
and then share with you a few new poems
since the book was published.
This is the title poem from Palm Reading in Winter called
"Palm Reading in Winter."
It's a little trick I have.
"Palm Reading in Winter."
Something simple.
Something clear.
Anticipation of cold weather.
Skaters circling on a pond.
The snow is void of distance.
What seems far away is all too close.
A man comes home to his family tired of his work.
If there's a fire in the fireplace, so much the better.
A hot drink with its theme for his lips.
So what if it's not enough?
Think of the absence of. thought.
Snow drifts over footprints.
A candle lit in sunlight.
What's difficult, retrace.
The ice ballet, the figure eight,
hands over the fire, the smell of cinders on our clothes.
The lines in the hand are complex but change,
smooth themselves out.
And if in our palms we see change that seems unjust,
the hand of someone else in ours may mask that fear,
distract us for a time at least.
What is not enough.
What we have and what we want, the need to know,
the ache that complicates.