This Morning, This First Poem
It is the first day of the year again, this time in the quiet absence of Portlandia, we have our own quiet way of entering the spaces between the seconds of life, where time fades. The fire makes a noise, inside here where ice and snow make the earth frozen, press us to guess what weather will do now as weather becomes a matter of climate with no divination. I listen to your napping, air going inside to fill you with warmth from the fireplace, air going out to let your soul teach the world what it is to make the journey to the heart. So this first poem the day a golden retriever wallowed in the sunrise over frozen snow, then sat up to grin the silly grin of its kind, as if to say, the light is there if you only wait. We wait together for the first man to enter this house we are leaving for another house, as you say it is me, I am the man to bless the heart, its mystery of fire and the light.
Copyright © 2018 by Afaa Michael Weaver. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 15, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
“While in the process of moving to the Hudson Valley area, my partner Kristen and I were nestled in front of the fireplace in the old house in Connecticut. As she slept, I meditated on the fire, her breathing, and a quatrain structure for writing about the heart, fire, and light. I thought of the heart as the governing power in the energetic body, while watching the rhythm of the fire and the patterning of light shifting in the windows. In the way of physics, I am always fascinated by the paradoxical nature of light as both wave and particle.”
—Afaa Michael Weaver
Afaa Michael Weaver
Born in 1951, Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of several collections of poetry, including Spirit Boxing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017).