Selvage:

ON THE EDGE OF LANGUAGE

Monday, September 28, 2009

at the end, I reveal what I miss from back East...



Lost and Found in the American West

on the Green River, Utah



Objects write the river, its surface a tablet

of leaf, branch, rock, carp, fingers that trail


through the green-brown, all those tiny mirrors

tarnished like saloons. Swallows angle off wind,


their huts blooming from cracked canyons,

and pink brooms of tamarisk tidy the buzz.


The first day, our skins turn to what might be

at the bottom of a puddle. The third day, ritual.


By then, our eyes can’t hold the river long

enough for beauty. It’s where we’ve been.


We blink by red rock, streaking varnish down

its face. Awe proves unsustainable, despite


the eddy’s backpedal, its remnant fin. Off

the river at dark, the Milky Way catches


in cottonwood. Night raises smoke. Objects lost

mean fireflies, that nostalgic flick, which is not


the light of stars.


___________________________________________

Winner of the 2009 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Award, the complete collection is available now by clicking on Bear Star Press. $16. Free shipping!



7 comments:

  1. I miss fireflies too. I miss them so much that I proudly wear a dress to parties that is speckled with fireflies that glow in the dark.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Damn. Gonna read that again and again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm getting my copy, you betcha.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This I know....... "By then, our eyes can’t hold the river long
    enough for beauty. It’s where we’ve been."

    If you look at the base of Camels hump down in the Arroyo you might catch site of a glow worm

    ReplyDelete
  5. I like, "Awe is unsustainable." Very beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for all your support! For local peeps, I'm working on a reading at Vroman's in January. Will announce details when I have them....

    ReplyDelete