A Landscape
This painting of a barn and barnyard near sundown May be enough to suggest we don’t have to turn From the visible world to the invisible In order to grasp the truth of things. We don’t always have to distrust appearances. Not if we’re patient. Not if we’re willing To wait for the sun to reach the angle When whatever it touches, however retiring, Feels invited to step forward Into a moment that might seem to us Familiar if we gave ourselves more often To the task of witnessing. Now to witness A barn and barnyard on a day of rest When the usual veil of dust and smoke Is lifted a moment and things appear To resemble closely what in fact they are.
Credit
From Night School by Carl Dennis, published by Penguin Poets, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2018 by Carl Dennis. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 26, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“What makes a great landscape more than merely pleasing—that's the question that got me started on this poem. What makes it seem as if something important is being revealed about the way the world is put together? The poem doesn't try to answer these questions so much as to raise them in a way that sharpens the experience of being haunted.”
—Carl Dennis
Date Published
12/26/2017