Spark of the Sky Stag’s Great Heart by Sarah Messer

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 29, 2015   Spark of the Sky Stag’s Great Heart   Sarah Messer

strung from a thought arrived through the keyhole grasping the hand of another   I will begin with my mouth   then live with antlers remembering the light inside, always to breathe this unforgetting   and his body shaped like a crabapple tree   or a mother raised by a wolf looking back at the mirror   and trying not to break anvils on the bottles of blame   in another life: smell of moss, stream water, depressions of dark orange rocks which trap tiny fish   the consequence of silence: a field beneath opening clouds   on that morning I woke to the sound of the blue jay and used a small silver key   some day we will all be gone from this place   now that the live oak has thrown down all its caramel-colored leaves, thought lives in the ear-shaped idea of this only            Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Messer. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I wrote this poem in the middle of packing to leave a place I had lived in for fourteen years. So the poem is about coming and going, and also about the arrival of a thought or a memory. It is an attempt to remember that one day we will all be dead and gone. If I can remember, I find that I act with more kindness, love, and right action—so the poem is also a spell or a prayer to never forget this.” —Sarah Messer   Sarah Messer is the author of Dress Made of Mice (Black Lawrence Press, 2015). She works at White Lotus Farms and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Most Recent Book by Messer   Dress Made of Mice (Black Lawrence Press, 2015) "Three Moves" by John Logan "Our Daily Becoming" by Adam Clay "Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character" by Rebecca Wolff Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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