#olstein

[aestheticallypleasinganimeboys]

Olstein - Brown Dust 2

[poetry-eaters]

At first he seemed a child, dirt on his lip and the sun lighting up his hair behind him. All around us, the hesitation of year-rounders who know the warmer air will bring crowds. No one goes to their therapist to talk about how happy they are, but soon I’d be back in the dugout telling my batting coach how the view outside my igloo seemed to be changing, as if the night sky were all the light there is. Now, like two babies reaching through the watery air to touch soft fingers to soft forehead, like blind fish sensing a familiar fluttering in the waves, slowly, by instinct, we became aware. Off-field, outside the park, beyond the gates, something was burning.   The smell was everywhere.

Lisa Olstein; Dream in Which I Love a Third Baseman

[thevulgar]

FROM THIS VANTAGE POINT YOUR VIEW WILL BE CLEAR | Lisa Olstein

Any shift in philosophy introduces the need for new habits of the body. I am learning how gently to lift them, to turn them swiftly and rest them again, on their wings, wings to table, which I sand smooth each morning. To do it with no fluttering, with as little as possible. It is a strange gymnastics, their bodies, mine: what to grasp, when to release, the nature of a turn, the will of the whole channeled into the fingertips. It takes all my strength. It is necessary to practice, to imagine myself the moth, my arms its wings, my legs gone.

[thevulgar]

ANY SUCH BOLD CLAIM | Lisa Olstein

We are ringed by hills. I’ve taken to burying almost anything that dies— spiders, mice, birds I find in the road. This goes against local custom; here they burn. I question what I eat. How death makes it possible, but not dead long. Not too newly, either. There is no beauty in this, which is what draws me. I expect certain things to correct themselves, but sheep remain dumb in bickering light. Whatever part of this can be gotten rid of, I want gone. Whatever part must be taken, taken inside.

[thevulgar]

WHITE SPRING | Lisa Olstein

I am working on a specimen so pale it is like staring at snow from the bow of a ship in fog. I lose track of things—articulation of wing, fineness of hair—as if the moth itself disappears, but remains as an emptiness before me. Or, from its bleakness, the subtlest distinctions suddenly increase: the slightest shade lighter in white begins to breathe with a starkness that’s arresting and the very idea of color terrifies. It has snowed and the evening is blue. The herders look like buoys, like waders the water has gotten too deep around. They’ll have to swim in to shore. Their horses are patient. They love to be led from their stalls. They love to sharpen their teeth on the gate. They will stand, knees locked, for hours.

[thevulgar]

DREAMY LITTLE SAVAGE | Lisa Olstein

Light is a blanket or a basin in which to wash. Then it is nothing again, and here I am, there the plains, the well, the watering hole, animals congregated there, a herd of low clouds on the horizon. The last healer I went to was haughty and would not look me in the eye. The gesture for come here looks like go away. No is said with the flick of an eyebrow, a soft click of the tongue.

[thevulgar]

IN THE MEANTIME | Lisa Olstein

What seemed a mystery was

in fact a choice. Insert bird for sorrow.   

What seemed a memory was in fact

a dividing line. Insert bird for wind.   

Insert wind for departure when everyone is

standing still. Insert three mountains

burning and in three valleys a signal seer

seeing a distant light and a signal bearer

sprinting to a far-off bell. What seemed

a promise was in fact a sigh.   

What seemed a hot wind, a not quite enough,   

a forgive me, it has flown away, is in fact.   

In the meantime we paint the floors

red. We stroke the sound of certain names

into a fine floss that drifts across our teeth.

We stay in the room we share and listen

all night to what drifts through the window—

dog growl, owl call, a fleet of mosquitoes

setting sail, and down the road,   

the swish of tomorrow’s donkey-threshed grain.

[thevulgar]

DEAR ONE ABSENT THIS LONG WHILE | Lisa Olstein

It has been so wet stones glaze in moss;

everything blooms coldly.

I expect you. I thought one night it was you

at the base of the drive, you at the foot of the stairs,

you in a shiver of light, but each time

leaves in wind revealed themselves,

the retreating shadow of a fox, daybreak.

We expect you, cat and I, bluebirds and I, the stove.

In May we dreamed of wreaths burning on bonfires

over which young men and women leapt.

June efforts quietly.

I’ve planted vegetables along each garden wall

so even if spring continues to disappoint

we can say at least the lettuce loved the rain.

I have new gloves and a new hoe.

I practice eulogies. He was a hawk

with white feathered legs. She had the quiet ribs

of a salamander crossing the old pony post road.

Yours is the name the leaves chatter

at the edge of the unrabbited woods.