A letter to Jim Harrison by Lindsay Pope

.
It may be of no surprise to you that the day
your book arrived the waxeyes at my feeder
were noisier, more nervous and more abundant
than usual. On the global face, I live on the
lower cheek of the world where the tears fall
and turn to ice. So you might not know these
little birds. They may have hitched a ride on
some seafaring boat and decided to stay. Or
perhaps they caught the tail of some

Outpost, by Lindsay Pope

March, 1941.

The coast is a scribble. Stars are stored in a
wooden box on my shelf. It is more black than
white here. Like algebra but colder.

The hut�s walls are a ghetto of mice. Those I
catch become whiskers of smoke in the firebox.

I attend to the scratching radio.

This is not my dream.


July, 1942.

The short days are long here. Morse code
stutters in my aerial.

Every door of the home