Disarming of Shadow, Arming of Light by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend February 23, 2015   Disarming of Shadow, Arming of Light   Rachel Eliza Griffiths

I wish I were like Johnny Cash & thought my heart was mine.   I’ve worn a black suit my entire life. It suits the war my eyes ignite.   My sins sit on my lap, bald, blind, desperate for the mercy of lost roads, glottal white lines.   Only smoke will take me far to nowhere—   a woman living between her own burning road   & a charmed God—   the unmarked sky where a plague of blackbirds   fell across my back like an unlit cross.            Copyright © 2015 by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “Is your heart yours and how do you recognize, inhabit, and expand it? Over years of listening to Johnny Cash, I heard a new question in ‘I Walk the Line’ and thought about his voice and lyrics in the way that a poet or poem will find you (again) at the darkest, most honest part of your life. I also wanted to bridge and invert the visual, psychological imagery of Cash’s identity as a ‘man in black’ for myself. I’ve discovered so much light, grief, and God in my skin.” —Rachel Eliza Griffiths   Rachel Eliza Griffiths is the author of Lighting the Shadow (Four Way Books, 2015). She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Most Recent Book by Griffiths   Lighting the Shadow (Four Way Books, 2015) "Mirrors" by Tada Chimako "Days of Me" by Stuart Dischell "Wide Sigh" by Melissa Broder Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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