Simple Clutter

This, This...

Whenever it is dark in the house
I turn on a small light for comfort
a small light in the kitchen
over the sink.

In winter when day fades
I pull a chair to a window
to read by the light of sunset
news of a distant world,

and light from the kitchen
collects on the floor in dim puddles.
It reminds me that we are poor.
It reminds me of my mother

cutting sprouts from potatoes,
how she would call when I complained
""Come. Look!"" water pouring from the tap
""Look, this we have in abundance.""



James A. Zoller lives and writes in rural western New York where he and his wife, Donna, raised their four children. Simple Clutter is the first of his books, which include Living on the Flood Plain and Ash & Embers. Zoller has spent the last thirty-four years teaching writing and literature at Houghton College. In the near future Zoller looks forward to shifting his attention full time to his writing projects, which includes several more collections of poems, a collection of short stories, and a composition text to be called Crossing the River. In addition to teaching and writing the three books named here, he has written columns for local newspapers, undertaken a travel blog (flood-plain.blogspot.com), published short stories, and written ceremonial poems for various public occasions, including the weddings of his children.