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Dour river
Jaded with monotony of lights
Diving off mast heads….
Lights mad with creating in a river... turning its sullen back....
Heave up, river…
Vomit back into the darkness your spawn of light…
The night will gut what you give her.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 26, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
Wind rising in the alleys
My spirit lifts in you like a banner
Streaming free of hot walls.
You are full of unspent dreams . . .
You are laden with beginnings . . .
Come forth, you workers!
Let the fires go cold—
Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs—
Let the iron run wild
Like a red bramble on the floors—
Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine
And the shrapnel lying on the wharves—
Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom—
I have known only my own shallows—
Safe, plumbed places,
Where I was wont to preen myself.
But for the abyss
I wanted a plank beneath
And horizons...
I was afraid of the silence
And the slipping toe-hold...