From Oceanic (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.m on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. All rights reserved.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corp. Used with permission.
but in this poem nothing dies.
Alone in the poem, I make myself
brave. No—I show brave
to my body, take both to the ocean.
Come hurricane, come rip current,
come toxic algal bloom.
In March, I drift past the estuary
to watch an eight-foot dolphin
lap the Mill River
like a cat pacing a bathtub,
sick and disoriented.
Biologists will unspool her empty intestines,
weigh her gray cerebellum.
She swam a great distance to die
alone. I’m sorry—I lied. I can’t control
what lives or dies. I need a place
to stow my brain. To hold
each moment close as a sand flea
caught in my knuckle hairs.
Please, someone—
tell me a poem can coax
oil from a sea bird’s throat.
Tell me what to do
with my hands—my hands—
what can my hands do now?
Copyright © 2025 by Rachel Dillon. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 27, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.