Unpacking a Globe by Arthur Sze

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 10, 2015   Unpacking a Globe   Arthur Sze

I gaze at the Pacific and don’t expect to ever see the heads on Easter Island,   though I guess at sunlight rippling the yellow grasses sloping to shore;   yesterday a doe ate grass in the orchard: it lifted its ears and stopped eating   when it sensed us watching from a glass hallway—in his sleep, a veteran   sweats, defusing a land mine. On the globe, I mark the Battle of   the Coral Sea—no one frets at that now. A poem can never be too dark,   I nod and, staring at the Kenai, hear ice breaking up along an inlet;   yesterday a coyote trotted across my headlights and turned his head   but didn’t break stride; that’s how I want to live on this planet:   alive to a rabbit at a glass door— and flower where there is no flower.            Copyright © 2015 by Arthur Sze. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “One day I unpacked a globe out of a cardboard box and looked at different locations on our planet. When I saw ‘Coral Sea,’ I stopped and thought of the Battle of the Coral Sea. The poem sprang out of that moment.” —Arthur Sze   Arthur Sze is the author of Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). He is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.   Photo credit: Mariana Cook Most Recent Book by Sze   Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) "The Combo" by Joan Larkin "Elegy in Limestone" by CJ Evans "He Stood" by Aaron Shurin Read This Poem   For National Poetry Month, we’ve teamed up with 826 National to produce Read This Poem, a celebration of poets in cities with 826 chapters. Read this week's featured poems by poets from Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. 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