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Subnivean

block as poetic form

 

Subnivean

the clean sound of traffic spells its name
in the background

it spells the name of a city
and the hush that happens beneath the snow

but also on top of it

it divides the snow with its black tires
moving to the left and to the right

its traction
like a world spinning
a recycling of tread that moves, that was born
from the earth, a rubber that was born
from the sound of coming together

something so elastic and tough it splits
the sound of the snow so deeply into the hands
of the sky that open up like a song and ask questions of
this sound that happens

whether its in the background
or whether its in the foreground

and the tread is a map
and is crissed and crossed like a grid,  

deeper in
beneath that black rubber you can find
these valleys and in the valley is a darkness and
depression that allows the snow
to become water and to be refreshed as it spits it
out to the left and to the right
as the movement continues on forward.

it is a recycle
a revolution of movement
it is the same thing that happens over and over and over again it is a forward progress
it is splitting
it is the lodge

it is the song of the background
it is the song of the background
it is the song of the background

and as the middle starts to expand outward
it is the song of the background
and the background is a progress
and the middle is a center,
an immovable center

and the expansion of the background becomes a larger circle until that circle becomes a circumference
until the middle breaks in on itself and becomes a circle,
a circumference,

and the earth continues to spin
as it carries its tread
as it moves its tread, the earth, the grid,
the man-made possibilities that are laid on top of the ground

like a blanket of snow
like clothes

like the next fashion that we wait upon
until the people who tell us what to wear and
how to wear it and what it will look good like when we wear it

become silent

like a blanket of snow