Emily Strauss has written poetry her whole life, mostly focused on the natural surroundings of the West. She camps alone frequently to immerse in the special beauties and silences of the desert and mountains. She is a retired English teacher, and lives in Silicon Valley. Currently more than 90 of her poems appear in public online and in anthologies in dozens of venues. ---------
Move the Marker over One Notch
when knitting in the round you must know
where the circle begins and ends, to count
the stitches in your pattern, to see where
gray becomes white again, a plastic marker
moved each time in the endless cycle
just a notch counting each winter's
arrival, when clouds are apt to be low
and dark, when daylight falls beneath
the horizon, when you can wear
a privileged sweater
you circling the sun again,
now at the farthest edge of light
and heat, you celebrate the cold
your inheritance, born of the snow
in the snow
you lying on frozen ground as if
you dropped from the warm womb
onto a bare field, dead leaves blowing
your lips immediately blue
that legacy remembered always
in cold feet, stiff hands fumbling
with awkward buttons
you re-live the ritual every year
click the marker over to the next
empty view with a frozen moon
overhead, or silent glass stars
the pattern still holds
around the circle
you stitching the year together—
gray into white— marked again.