EDITOR’S CHOICE: Quiet Practice – Poem by Willie Smith

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD: Bringing some of my favorite previously-published poetry back to the front page.

I know,
standing arms akimbo at the window,
outside falling snow, practice.
Feel, at a point behind the eyes,
between the ears, above the nose,
tastes of quiet accumulate.
Late grows the hour.
Our time comes to us
through that focus, while the snow
outside the window into the snow grows.
I shuffle, unbending elbows, over the floor
from the window to the stove, thinking
through the shuffle, the crackle, the creak,
the wonder if yet over the creek ice
for the snow to pillow the snow.
Heat, bending over the stove,
I know.