Dean Kostos expertly weds form and content in this poem–a villanelle–whose use of refrain and repetition reflects an old man’s movement through time and memory.
—
Ice Garden
While the grandfather sleeps, dreaming of snow,
he sees ice statues—selves he can’t forget.
They’ve come to teach what he couldn’t know.
Each younger self extends a hand: a tableau
of withered opportunities, regrets.
While the grandfather sleeps, dreaming of snow,
their phantoms parade past his mind’s window.
They glissade as if spelling with a planchette,
having come to teach what none can know
in youth’s thorny tangle of demands. Now,
he crosses a threshold: a birth, a death.
While the grandfather sleeps, dreaming of snow,
his boy & youngman selves attempt to let
the ancient man they’ve become undergo
a transformation: forgiving what he couldn’t know
before. His embrace melts them. As he speaks to
the wraiths, they vanish like vapor through a net.
While the grandfather sleeps, dreaming of snow,
he expands into being what he couldn’t know.
***
Editor’s Note: Dean Kostos has published with us before. Read “The Antique Cast.”
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Photo by J. Michel (aka: Mitch) Carriere /Flickr
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