Blizzard + Dying Words

Chris Forhan

Blizzard

That’s a good word—blizzard—blurred, swift, 
the sound fishing up from below 

a long ago downdraft, snow, fast flicks
at my bedroom window, I was ten, 

fine film of water blearing the glass, 
orange slices in a bowl on the bedside table, 

beneath the needle the Beatles keening 
You don’t get me. Blizzard: is that the word 

that floated into my head then? What 
does it matter. He’s gone, that boy 

is dead, now that I have thought, 
so late, to make him speak.

Dying Words

Clod is gone, and nincompoop: 
useful names for us once. They vanished
as my sad dying dad did 
and one or two childish wild loves—
so slow to erode I took no notice
till a flitter of wind undid them.

Always some mindless spring 
is spidering forth out of absence,
upright sticks in sludge 
something-or-othering
into fusses of pink and yellow.

Whatever is lost returns, just 
in fresh form. What good is that?

O lion, turning your back, 
padding grandly away into tall grass,
let me follow for once to where you go.
Of what you show me there, 
I’ll say nothing, I promise.

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Chris Forhan’s latest book is A Mind Full of Music: Essays on Imagination and Popular Song. He has also published a memoir, My Father Before Me, and three books of poetry and has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes. He teaches at Butler University in Indianapolis.