Set in Stone

Kevin Carey

A rosary that was my mother’s

tucked in the glove compartment of his car

and a copy of Exile on Main Street

with instructions to play track 6

when he hit some lonesome desert highway.

I love him so much my chest hurts,

thinking of him riding off into his own life,

me the weeping shadow left behind (for now).

I know I’ll see him again but it’s ceremony

we’re talking about after all—

one growing up and one growing older

both wild curses.

A train blows its horn

the light rising beyond the harbor,

a dog barks from a car window

and the nostalgia (always dangerous)

hits me like a left hook.

I’m trapped between the memory

and the moment,

the deal we make

if we make it this long,

the markers of a life,

the small worthwhile pieces

that rattle around in my pockets

waiting to be set somewhere in stone.

Fledgling

Traci Brimhall

I scare away rabbits stripping the strawberries

in the garden, ripened ovaries reddening

their mouths. You take down the hanging basket

and show it to our son—a nest, secret as a heart,

throbbing between flowers. Look, but don’t touch,

you instruct our son who has already begun

to reach for the black globes of a new bird’s eyes,

wanting to touch the world. To know it.

Disappointed, you say: Common house finch,

as if even banal miracles aren’t still pink

and blind and heaving with life. When the cat

your ex-wife gave you died, I was grateful.

I’d never seen a man grieve like that

for an animal. I held you like a victory,

embarrassed and relieved that this was how

you loved. To the bone of you. To the meat.

And we want the stricken pleasure of intimacy,

so we risk it. We do. Every day we take down

the basket and prove it to our son. Just look

at its rawness, its tenderness, it’s almost flying.

Metamorphosis: 1680

Linda Bierds

I paint flowers decorated with caterpillars.

I want to inquire into everything that exists and find
out how it began.

—Maria Sibylla Merian

From basil, the scorpion.

—Athanasius Kircher

From pine tree resin, amber.

From fury, hail.

From acacia’s sap, the bond.

From raindrops, frogs.

From clay, yellow ochre.

From dust, fleas.

From the beetle, carmine.

From mud, the beetle.

From the murex snail, violet.

From sea foam, the anchovy.

From the lamb, parchment.

From the bull, the bee.

What?

From the mouth of a slaughtered bull,

cloaked in thyme and serpyllium,

the bee.

From the sable, the brush tip.

From books, the moth.

From the eagle, swan, crow, lark,

the diminishing quills.

From fire, red snow and the west wind,

the worm.

From the worm, the silk moth.

From vapor, the silk moth.

What? From the spun cocoon, the silk moth.

Yes. From steam and bluster,

the silk moth.

From the silk moth’s mouth,

the potentate’s cloak.

From the potentate’s horse,

the hornet.

Fall, Leaves, Fall

Emily Brontë

1818 –

1848

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

This poem is in the public domain.

The Sin of Pride

John Koethe

1945 –

turns out not to be a sin at all, but in the guise

Of self-esteem a virtue; while poetry, an original

Sin of pride for making self-absorption seem heroic,

Apologizes again and shuts the door. O Small

Room of Myself, where everything and nothing fits,

I wish the night would last forever as the song assures,

Though it never does. I make my way not knowing

Where it leads or how it ends—in shocks of recognition,

In oblivion deferred, too little or too late, consumed

By fears of the forgotten and of the truly great. Morning

Brings a newspaper and an ordinary day, the prospect

Of a popular novel, though it's hard to read. I write to live

And read to pass the time, yet in the end they're equal,

And instead of someone else's name the name I hear is mine—

Which is unsurprising, since our stories all sound alike,

With nothing to reveal or hide. How thin our books

Of revelations, the essential poems of everyone

Mysterious on the outside, but with nothing to conceal—

Like the stories of experience I go on telling myself

And sometimes even think are true, true at least to a feeling

I can't define, though I know what I know: of a mind

Relentlessly faithful to itself and more or less real.

Mistake

Heather Christle

For years I have seen

dead animals on the highway

and grieved for them

only to realize they are

not dead animals

they are t shirts

or bits of blown tire

and I have found

myself with this

excess of grief

I have made with

no object to let

it spill over and

I have not known

where to put it or

keep it and then today

I thought I know

I can give it to you

The Expiration

John Donne

1572 –

1631

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,

Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away;

Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this,

And let ourselves benight our happiest day.

We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe

Any so cheap a death as saying, “Go.”

Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,

Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.

Or, if it have, let my word work on me,

And a just office on a murderer do.

Except it be too late, to kill me so,

Being double dead, going, and bidding, “Go.”

The poem is in the public domain.

A Moment

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

The clouds had made a crimson crown

About the mountains high.

The stormy sun was going down

In a stormy sky.

Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,

And hold your breath between?

In all the ages this can never be

As if it had not been.

This poem is in the Public Domain.

Kettle

Phillis Levin

Flame under the bubbling water.

Blue flame. Water ready for tea.

Amber infusion soon to be seeping,

Leaves about to uncurl. Here

Is a tin, a spoon, a cup, an open

Teapot saying, Nobody else but me

To nobody else but you: awaken,

Pour. What are you waiting for?

poemas

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