3 poems
from Gray Realm
REVERIE’S BLITHE INVITATION
Reverie’s blithe
invitation arrives, that hint
as of salt on from-afar winds,
the very air
calling—
abandon the sextant will—
for departure.
Away on an unknown sea—
unmapped or off-the-map—of gray-blue
inadvertencies,
unclaimed
immensities within—
How can there be error?
How to stray
when there’s no destination?
And yet—
to embark
in this or that direction
into pure undelimited
space,
is to forego other ways, to surrender
the breadth of color
to line.
In that moment,
certainty is a valuable delusion,
all at once
allowing that quick first stroke—
as when a bow parts the vastness
and leaves
a wake on the delible surface—
line crossing line,
tangents and rare contingencies
discovered,
a scatter of green
archipelago—as enticing as ellipsis…
And yet—
the winds will give out, will shift
direction, then other pleasures hold sway,
pleasures not
of stasis but balance—
of form,
the other joy.
Action calls for counter-action—
daring farther
or waiting
for dark
to consult the stars, anchor a while,
or chart a new course onward…
STAR RIVER NIGHT
It’s not a falls
but a record of falling,
the river’s
spill into empty
dark: drops
and splashes graph
in the aggregate scatter
a way;
the running over
isn’t random but is,
within the structures and strictures
of the physical, free.
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“Gravity makes the image”
| | |
One star—
a drop
in the River of Heaven,
that rush so unstinting it looks still,
can seem
to pulse,
to disambiguate from the sinuous
arching
body of light
it’s a silver scruple of,
can seem
somehow not itself
abstract,
but an actual
mote of fire,
a dense, literal seething.
NIGHT VISION
When I was a child I saw what I called angels among the trees. The angels drew me. I loved them because they appeared only to me. They belonged to me. I didn’t think to be afraid. I loved them because they appeared. They were tall, translucent, and fluttered like torch flames. I knew to tell no one. I surprise myself by telling now. The silence around and within them swirled with a furied longing to speak. They were mute. They only appeared. They drew me. Often I walked out at night. I didn’t think. I loved. I saw as one sees by torchlight, by knowing already what’s there to see. They appeared tall as torches and fluttered. They longed to speak. I knew to tell no one. I was a child. They drew me. The silence among them swirled translucent. By telling now I surprise myself. Angels I called them because I loved them. They were tall.
Jennifer Atkinson is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently THE THINKING EYE. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at George Mason University.