Winter Stranger

For Jakob . 1


I
2003 . 4
We Learned the Mountains by Heart . 5 
The Christmas Poem . 6
Letter from Nine Mile . 7
Letter Sent and Subsequently Returned by the Mailman . 8
These White Letters Look Nothing Like the Snow . 11
For Taylor . 14
The 26th Birthday Poem . 16 
The Lamps . 17


II The Book of Jakob
Unsent Letter to Jakob . 21
Another Winter Poem . 22
Jakob in the Basement . 25
Another Summer Withdrawal Poem . 27 
Waking in the City . 29
Unfinished Letter to Jakob . 31
Poem with a Smoke Cloud Hanging in It . 33 
After Rilke . 35
Poem . 36
One Last Poem for Jakob . 37


III
World War I Poem . 41 
World War I Poem . 43 
Evil Nature . 45 
January . 46
Fragment . 47
Burying the Dead High Up on the Mountain . 48
Love Poem to the Terrible Doctors . 50 
Poem Containing No Pills . 51
After C.D. Wright . 52
Dream Where the Men Are in My House, Eating My Food, and Stealing My Ideas . 53


IV
Landscape . 57
The Water Poem . 58 
Two Pastoral Poems . 61 
The Uncle Poem . 63 
Moth . 68 


Notes . 69
Acknowledgments . 71