"Winterreise" by Boyer Rickel

Boyer and I shared a love for poetry at Oberlin and we were present at the creation of its creative writing program. Boyer pursued a life of poetry, and I went off to law school. He published his first volume of poetry in his forties: Arreboles. Karen and I loved that word so much that we named our first adobe house after it. We eventually followed Boyer to the desert and have lived next door to Arreboles for the past 17 years, watching the color you see in clouds opposite the setting sun.

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Schubert walked a path, a song

he sang, not morbidly

or in fear, but in contrast

to what might come,

to what would not,

in his voice a gladness.

I hear this song in the spastic

blind wriggling of worms

that eat the agave root,

the agave's outer blades

shrinking inward,

yellow, unable to stand.

And in the gap between

the dog's god-powerful nose

and the cat's flattened ears,

each animal poised

at the absolute limit, one

angstrom unit beyond which

they'd wrap themselves,

fang and claw, into

a nuclear cloud of hair. There's

a color that is many colors —

in Spanish, a word that sings,

arreboles. This color you see

in clouds on the horizon

opposite the setting sun.

Not the fires that bring tears,

but the color that moves

opposite these brilliances,

akin to mauve and rose and violet.

Like musical overtones — strike

the piano's middle C

and hunch down close

to the spray of strings,

down by the sounding board.

Listen: the Others, not God,

but something nameless,

like ghosts or angels,

more felt than seen or heard.

The hope that hovers, pure,

above the written,

the drawn, the legislated plan.