Late Summer Up North
by Rodney Nelson

how much of today would you give to be on
the mirador in Manzanillo again
when it was only a rotting sloven port

not the warm running wind in your apartment
or the merer view of high active leafage
on the apple trees that now become your street

not even the blown-in scent of manchineel
that you imagine or having to admit
that what arrived so late is soon to be leaving

summer has made an own plateau in today
and you would trade none of the air of it for
Manzanillo’s and not move off it either

Bog Light

part-song of wolf in the night
and waking to a road to
the open

                         riding between
pine walls out and overhead
the sky route

                         ways or the way
right into an open north
and bog light

                         the lake one next
without limit and none to
the quiet

                         tamarack and
spruce on milder green and a
track in sand

                         flark beginning
or ending in morass but
only light

                         awaiting the
entry of ghost caribou

_____

Rodney Nelson’s work has appeared in a variety of journals, including 63 Channels, Aireings, American Letters & Commentary, Arbutus, Archipelago, Arts Forum, Blackbird, Burning River, Dead Drunk Dublin, Georgia Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Kansas Quarterly, Language and Culture.net, Nimrod, Ottawa Arts Review, Scythe Literary Journal, The Beat, Triggerfish, Trillium Literary Journal, Whistling Shade, White Leaf Journal, Poetry and Ygdrasil. He is also the author of several books, including Swede Poems (Shearsman Books, 2007), Bytime in Yangland (Sugar Mule, 2006), Cowboy Village (Scene4, 2005), Harvestman (Retort Magazine, 2004), Villy Sadness (New Rivers Press, 1987), Home River (North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1984), Red River Album (Stronghold Press, 1984), Thor’s Home (Holmganger’s Press, 1984), The Green God (Jump River Press, 1982), Boots Brevik Saga (Holmganger’s Press, 1978) and Oregon Scroll (Holmganger’s Press, 1976).
He lives in Walcott, ND.