Andrew McKnight

Feb. 1, 2026

It is where the Christmas trees go 
to complete their journey
Four of them now, out
the living room window
Set gently on the edge of the wood 
ten feet away
leaning angled against two tall trees
sheltering things small,
against cold and carnivore

It is for mornings like these
when the mercury does not see its shadow
I open my window to the world
and fling the refillings of repurposed 
yogurt containers
scooping seeds and sunflower shells
to adorn the snow haphazardly
as the birds do now
in the aftermath

I…

Our friend Maria
dances with words
and twirls with ghosts
as though she is intimate 
with the sight of sounds
and echoes moving in spaces
unseen

Stories of ancestors
of loss and longing 
as she peels back each onion skin
of their meaning
they burst through doors
into liminal rooms
lavishly decorated in transcendance
and understanding

Her tongue
flavored in equal parts
with the lengua Cubana
of her exiled parents
and streetslick slang
salsa dancing through alleys 
and cafés
of Miami's Little Havana
She learned to live
in thank you
…

Come, come in 
Come sit by my fire
Warm your soul, and your heart, and your fingers
You are invited in, to take your place
It is the season of gratitude,
and I am grateful for you

It is November now,
the bacchanalia of autumn color yields
to the season of the sticks
and the grey,
the litter of Nature's final
lavish extravaganza
lies strewn about,
like trash and detritus
windblown and piled in
corners and curbs
of Times Square,
when the sun rises
after the ball drops

The scurrying burrow creatures
hurriedly gather their last…

A single bright cluster of crimson berry stands
against the dusky tones
and taut dry chill of early winter

The scents on the grey wind are hard to taste,
as the consequences of the season
have taken firm hold of my sinuses

The hedgerow pops with near-iridescent blue flashes
as the flocking bluebirds forage
in barren twig, and naked underbrush

A lone Osage Orange clings to a branch,
like a grotesque leftover
of Halloween weeks ago

The cow cabin clings barely to the steep hillside,
slowly losing its battle with gravity…

I will not hate
you
because of how you look,
who you love,
where you were born,
who or how you worship
or whether or not you worship at all

I have no room for hate in my heart,
or in my life

Some who do not share my views
of how the world works
or theories about nature's mysteries
or how humans should treat each other
might insist
that I belong
in a vision of vitriol
faceless anonymous masses marching
under some banner of some other side
"those who are filled with hate"
I simply smile, and say "I'm sorry that you feel that…

Welcome to the world, dear daughter, welcome

I stand in a circle of four strong women
their stories intersecting,
overlapping
through time and space
the first three united not by blood
but by choice of men married

This new one,
Madeleine Rose
holds all three within her tiny body
born in the care of nurses
compassionate angels
like the one whose name she bears

The first of the four
the nurse
giver of life and comfort,
her great-grandmother
my beloved grandmother
my mother's mother in law
the one who stood…

An old favorite, short and sweet, from the seasons of the long dark nights, and perhaps more aware of our celestial companions

There is a shiny sliver of a moon
hanging in the crisp clear southwestern sky,
like a piece of cherry pie
through a freshly cleaned counter glass
that you'd ram your nose into
by accident
because you'd never see it...

And it feels like blackberry winter is here
the mercury is curling up
in that low part of the thermometer,
huddling together for warmth

Does mercury keep itself…

Panama, August 2004

El Bohio de la bahia
rainy season relieved
if only for the hour
Azure ceiling fleeting
teasing the constancy
of limitless horizon
and infinite Sea

The lovely Señora Gringita
emerges like the mermaid
alone with the surf
and the observer
muscles rippling
like one who is in constant motion
beneath the surface
of the Sea

High tide lapping at her toes
tracing her return
just as I would
if I were the Sea
I would be with her
as far as I could reach
and I would swell and pound the sand
like…

We had the luxury of having a beautiful old Vermont house to ourselves on a warm spring day. Sort of like being lost in time, with the world all around. I hope this captures the essence of the lives chronicled in the art and decorations in what could easily have been a quaint country inn on a sunny mountainside.

Anna's house sits on the marblemount
   where the houses of used to be
      still leave their footprint in the thicket

Anna's house brings the world to her
   from Honduras to the Himalayas
…

A summer sunrise in the south is a sacred happening - the sounds, sights and smells of dew covered greenery, birds awaking, and the sun slow to lift from the eastern fields.

I lay with my lover in a predawn
Sundrop awaiting the alarm
that will end this embrace
for the moment, alone
   with our thoughts

Of each other
fresh in the wrinkling sheets
and folds of our minds
where all the time in the world
seems safe in this rosy sunrise bubble
      with us

There is no rush until
the radio awakes
except this…