Poem-A-Day: Somewhere between here and Belen by Jay Wright

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Somewhere between here and Belen  by Jay Wright Somewhere between here and Belen, the Rio Grande will narrow to a muddy bead, no more than three feet across from shore to shore. My friend, Nick Markulis, claims he loves the river's color there, and will bathe his toes in the water, and will go on and on about a dry river in Athens that measures its life                                    in olive groves. Stratis Thalassinos told me about these peculiar waters that disappear and turn up again, and, of course, you know of Arethusa's fountain in Syracuse. I do not accuse Markopoulos (do I have the name right? -- Markopoulos, Markulis, fugitive names, fugitive lives docking in Halifax) of being too conversant with asphodel meadows, but one cannot remain composed when hunters and cultic figures press their claims upon a sainted afternoon. Think now of the intimate authority of La Candelaria, the Sunday morning concert, the walk through the abandoned streets, where all was an occasion of Bogotá, a memory of Mazatlán, a shaping necessity we might have met at Salamis. Who can be sure that this white cloth will be dissolved by death? Copyright © 2013 by Jay Wright. Used with permission of the author. Poetry by Wright Disorientations: Groundings Guest Editor Arthur Sze was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2012. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the first poet laureate of Santa Fe. Find out more about the Academy's Board of Chancellors>  January 10, 2013 Jay Wright has a forthcoming book, Disorientations: Groundings, from Flood Editions in January 2013. He's a MacArthur Fellow and lives in Bradford, Vermont.   Related Poems Summer Night, Riverside by Sara Teasdale Somewhere Else by Matthew Shenoda Rückenfigur by Susan Howe Poem-A-Day started as a National Poetry Month program in 2006, delivering daily poems from newly-published poetry titles.   Due to popular demand, Poem-A-Day became a year-round program in 2010, featuring original, never-before-published poems by contemporary poets on weekdays, and classic poems on weekends.   Browse the Poem-A-Day archive for selections since 2010.  Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem In Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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