February

By Jack Collom b. 1931 Jack Collom

It is all kind of lovely that I know

what I attend here now the maturity of snow

has settled around forming a sort of time

pushing that other over either horizon and all is mine

in any colors to be chosen and

everything is cold and nothing is totally frozen

soon enough

the primary rough

erosion of what white fat it will occur

stiff yellows O

beautiful beautifully austere

be gotten down to, that much rash and achievement that

would promote to, but

now I know my own red

network electrifying this welcome annual hush.

Jack Collom, “February” from Red Car Goes By: Selected Poems 1955-2000, published by Tuumba Press. Copyright © 2001 by Jack Collom. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Source: Red Car Goes By: Selected Poems 1955-2000 (Tuumba Press, 2001)

Biography

Jack Collom was born in Chicago. He joined the US Air Force and was posted in Libya and Germany before returning to the United States. He earned a BA in forestry and English and an MA in English literature from the University of Colorado. Collom started publishing his poetry in the 1960s; his more recent publications are Entering the City (1997), Dog Sonnets (1998), the 500-plus page collection Red Car Goes By (2001), and . . .

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