Robert DeMott
Up Late Reading Birds of America
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Robert DeMott’s poetry has appeared in many journals, including Ontario Review, Georgia Review, Southern Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, Lake Effect, Windsor Review, and elsewhere. His collections include News of Loss (1994), The Weather in Athens (2001), winner of the Ohioana Poetry Award, and Brief and Glorious Transit: Prose Poems (2007). His most recent books are Angling Days: A Fly Fisher’s Journals (2016), and Conversations with Jim Harrison, Revised and Updated (2019). His most recent book is Steinbeck’s Imaginarium: Essays on Writing, Fishing, and Other Critical Matters from University of New Mexico Press. From 1969 to 2013 he taught at Ohio University, where he received half a dozen teaching awards. He serves on the editorial board of Steinbeck Review, and directorial board of Quarter After Eight, a literary journal. He lives in Athens, Ohio, with Kate Fox, poet and editor.
First Day of Winter
Before dawn on winter’s solstice,
north wind rattled windows and doors,
winnowed limbs from maple, oak, and poplar,
blew last blood-red leaves from burning bush,
scattered blue-black husks of sour gum seeds
across the yard, while fiery bittersweet,
in full flush of its scarlet and orange ripening,
dazzles a far corner of our backyard garden
watched by a brooding owl from its rickety perch,
plastic gift of a Christmas past, which sees all
but says less than nothing this snow-bruised day.
Little to do, then, left to my own chilly devices,
but pick up strewn limbs on paths and walkways,
gather enough kindling to start evening’s fire,
so our guests, soon to arrive, will be cheered
this longest night of a turning year.
