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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Poem-A-Day: Arthur Sze, Morning Antlers

Academy of American Poets

July 31, 2012

Today's poem is copyright © 2012 by Arthur Sze. Used with permission of the author.

More from this author




Other Sze Poems

  • At the Equinox
  • Comet Hyakutake
  • Looking Back on the Muckleshoot Reservation from Galisteo Street, Santa Fe
  • Slanting Light
  • Spring Snow

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    Morning Antlers
    by Arthur Sze

    Redwinged blackbirds in the cattail pond—
    today I kicked and flipped a wing
    in the sand and saw it was a sheared
    off flicker's. Yesterday's rain has left

    snow on Tesuque Peak, and the river
    will widen then dwindle. We step
    into a house and notice antlers mounted
    on the wall behind us; a ten-day-old child

    looks, nurses, and sleeps; his mother
    smiles but says she cries then cries
    as emptiness brims up and over.
    And as actions are rooted in feelings,

    I see how picking spinach in a field
    blossoms the picker, how a thoughtless act
    shears a wing. As we walk out
    to the car, the daylight is brighter

    than we knew. We do not believe
    flames shoot out of a cauldron of days
    but, looking at the horizon, see
    flames leap and crown from tree to tree.

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