A Sense of Proportion by William Stobb

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 23, 2014   A Sense of Proportion   William Stobb

On 20th between Madison and Ferry a line of municipal maples binds the community to an orderly, serviceable beauty. Platforms from which our sparrows and starlings might decorate our domestic sedans, perhaps these trees serve most to stimulate the car wash economy. Today, they remind me: unsatisfied with workaday species, my parents nailed oranges to a post to attract the exotic Oriole. When the birds arrived, I wondered if they’d flown all the way from Baltimore, which in turn evoked a hotel, gables lined with black and tangerine, posh clientele spackled by the vagaries of Maryland living. By nine I could sigh, climb our single red maple, which I imagined a national landmark. Child of movies, I could see the tree even at night as a kind of beacon, a singularity. White sheen on the leaves’ pitchy gloss, bodily. And I too would learn to feel glazed as any creature accumulating light cast from stars, hidden in a federation of equivalent times, distant trains carrying sugar, coal, whole families beyond deserts, imposing ranges, shimmering coastlines said to define the spirit of a people. Far from the station, the pinpoint aurora, a line of municipal maples bears its charge.              Copyright @ 2014 by William Stobb. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘A Sense of Proportion’ begins with direct observation of the neighborhood where I live, but quickly leads into memory. I was fortunate to grow up among trees, with parents who cared to watch birds, and with opportunities to be outside at night, alone.  I could hear the Empire Builder running west through the dark toward the Dakotas, the high plains, the Pacific coast, and my imagination went outbound with it.” —William Stobb   William Stobb is the author of Absentia (Penguin, 2011). He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and lives in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Most Recent Book by Stobb   Absentia (Penguin, 2011) “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E. E. Cummings “Giraffes” by Kimiko Hahn “Playgrounds” by Laurence Alma-Tadema Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. 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.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038