Ode for Tomaž Šalamun

my winter coat clutters with oddities,
the knots of coarse twine you gave me

once—reminders
cathedral bells stand

without clappers
without voices

a wild red-tail rabbit
crushed in the middle of back roads

lies in the blue midnight
wild onions in my pockets

like pebbles
taste of onions on my tongue

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Within the Iron Age grave of a woman in Denmark, a bronze box was found containing a preserved ball of yarn and an onion bulb—
two small moons,
a spell of protection,
idols,
domestic symbols,
earthy mysticism • Last night the house shivered within occasional power surges— three to five times throughout various hours. I kept waking from sleep, forced to reset the alarm clock. Over and over. Delaying a full uninterrupted sleep. • Tomaž Šalamun passed away in late December. I remember meeting him briefly almost twenty years ago at a poetry reading when I was a student working towards my MFA at Vermont College. He carried with him a heavy sense of poetry—meaning even his every intake of breath seemed to contain a profound sense of potential for later use in verse.

Read his poem "History." You will understand the complexity of many of his poems.