Poetry 365

Inspired by Billy Collins' Poetry 180 project, I post one poem per day here, for at least a year. | tags by author or subject | contact me here

Monday, Aug 02nd, 2010

Of Lights that Go Before Men, and Follow Them Abroad In the Fields, by the Night Season, Colin Cheney (for 7/31)

The focal length is all wrong, I say
to the meteor shower.

Be calm, they say,
or the chimney swallows will steal

ember by ember
everything keeping you close to him

lying on the lawn, counting stars
shaken from the night’s branches

in summer storm.
I promise to pay the medical bill

for August’s sky: orbits of iron
pith & cloud-seed broken

against our atmosphere.
The telescope we built—

a cardboard tube, Teflon
& mirror—is a close for seeing

only what could have been,
can’t tell you anything

about this moment. Here, light
means destruction. A mattress

dragged across the wet field
means light. The swallows

ember in the chimney.
Lie still, the meteors say

above the apple’s barren
branches. Sometimes

the sky can only be torn apart
with the naked eye.