A small boy and a slant of morning light
both exit the last dark trees of this forest, though
the boy is gone in an instant. Notthe light: it travels its famous 186,000 miles per second
to be this still gold bar
on the floor of the darkness. I supposethat from the universe’s point of view
we do the same: a small boy and an old man
The sky is random. Even calling it “sky”
is an attempt to make a meaning, say,
a shape, from the humanly visible part
of shapelessness in endlessness.
It’s what we do, in some ways it’s entirely what
we do—and so the devastating rose
of a galaxy’s being born, the fatal lamé
of another’s being…
(Source: picturepoems)
If you write a poem about love …
the love is a bird,
the poem is an origami bird.
If you write a poem about death …
the death is a terrible fire,
the poem is an offering of paper cutout flames
you feed to the fire.
We can see, in these, the space between
our gestures and the power they address
—an insufficiency. And yet a kind of beauty,
a distinctly human beauty. When a winter storm
from out of nowhere hit New York one night
in 1892, the crew at a theater was caught
unloading props: a box
of paper snow for the Christmas scene got dropped
and broken open, and that flash of white
confetti was lost
inside what it was a praise of.
—Human Beauty by Albert Goldbarth (via keenpeach)
(Source: poetryfoundation.org, via keenpeach)
—Albert Goldbarth (via p-r-i-m-e-m-o-v-e-r)
(Source: meta-jed)
—Albert Goldbarth’s “The Winds” (via themapleleaves)
Sentimental, Albert Goldbarth
The light has traveled unthinkable thousands of miles to be
condensed, recharged, and poured off the white white pages
of an open Bible the country parson holds in front of this couple
in a field, in July, in the sap and the flyswirl of July
in upper Wisconsin, where their vows buzz in a ring in the air
like the flies, and are as sweet as the sap, in these rich and ritual minutes.
(Source: poetryfoundation.org)
Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.
Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.
Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.
(Source: picturepoems)
—Albert Goldbarth’s “The Winds” (via themapleleaves)
(Source: themapleleaves)
