And her all too human grief

An Annual of the Dark Physics

The Baltic Sea froze in 1307. Birds flew north

From the Mediterranean in early January.

There were meteor storms throughout Europe.

On the first day of Lent

Two children took their own lives:

Their bodies

Were sewn into goatskins

And were dragged by the hangman’s horse

The three miles down to the sea.

They were given a simple grave in the sand.

The following Sunday, Meister Eckhart

Shouted that a secret word

Had been spoken to him. He preached

That Mary Magdalene

Sought a dead man in the tomb

But, in her confusion, found

Only two angels laughing. . .

This was a consequence of her purity

And her all too human grief.

The Baltic Sea

Also froze in 1303—

Nothing happened that was worthy of poetry.

Poetry Foundation

By Norman Dubie, “An Annual of the Dark Physics” from The Mercy Seat: Collected & New Poems 1967-2001 (Copper Canyon Press, 2001). www.coppercanyonpress.org