Poem of the Day
The Phase After History
By Jorie Graham
Then two juncoes trapped in the house this morning.
The house like a head with nothing inside.
The voice says: come in.
Then two juncoes trapped in the house this morning.
The house like a head with nothing inside.
The voice says: come in.
This world so
golden so un-
reachable this
If a man is his desire
if a man is his desire
if a man is his desire
Your “yet-to-be-dismantled” elms are few,
and by the time you read this may be gone.
In my own childhood we had one or two
Lateness is all that shimmers in the leaves,
that trembles in the bending grass,
that glistens on the berries on the vine.
He was middle-aged which
means that the mixture of
death and life in him was
the train has left the
station you can’t take it.
Once the promise has been
When cloud cover com-
plicates the crossing
all we can do is look
If we could see the lake someday without
the heaviness the clouds are always casting
in pewter ridges, would there be a doubt
It isn’t worth our while to fret about
our excellence or impotence in art.
I would have liked to be wilder, bolder,
I take the dusty yearbook off the shelf
and scan the fledgling, mostly white, male faces:
a foreign country, but the aging self