Chronoscope 147: How does?

Noon bells scratch  
like black maple bark 
limb branch jostle thrash scrape:
the gnarled stark 
twiggy stuff of January.

I’ve been over and over 
painting portraits
of two small portions 
of the sky:

sometimes grey as soothing
sometimes orange as a haystack:
sometimes blue as my own 
slow dissolving:

front window: two maples
in close, a pine wavering
in the background:
supernumerary trees
way out over the rooflines:

out the side window: what opens up.

How does this now thin paper skin:
this now linen stain: 
this now drumhead beaten raw 
not rip?

Why hasn’t the tear rending 
been blue thread stitched
like impatient mending
like necessity
like expedience?

JOHN WALSER

John Walser’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Spillway, Water-Stone Review, Plume, and Posit. His manuscript “Edgewood Orchard Galleries” has been a finalist for the Autumn House Press and Ballard Spahr Prizes, as well as a semifinalist for the Levine Prize and the Crab Orchard Series First Book Award. John is a four-time semifinalist for the Neruda Prize.