After the Chinese

by Steven Cramer

Sunlight on ice-hardened snow.
In the woods, a wooden bridge.
Friend, when we left home,

you chose South; I chose North.

Now we’re neither young nor wise.
A bird, tricked by sun, starts to sing—
wordless, and without news.

                                    —for Stuart Dischell

 

Steven Cramer is the author of four collections of poems. The most recent, Goodbye to the Orchard (Sarabande, 2004), was named a 2005 Massachusetts Honor Book and won the Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club.  He directs the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Lesley University. (7/2008)