For Poet Nanny Gunderson

For Poet Nanny Gunderson

Mother told me about your

pacing the house in Vermillion,

picking words out of the air

as if they were flying to you.

Then you'd speak with your mother

in Norwegian and her blindness

in a silent room with her knitting

that you'd pull apart every day.

I don't float through a dictionary.

A few useful words stream

through the ice striped window

while snowplows bank the useless.

We are all blind in our rooms

knitting some sense to our lives

with gODD pulling things apart

each night for our next day.

Barry G. Wick