Letter to the Northern Lights by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend September 1, 2016   Letter to the Northern Lights   Aimee Nezhukumatathil

The light here on earth keeps us plenty busy: a fire in central Pennsylvania still burns bright since 1962.   Whole squads of tiny squid blaze up the coast of Japan before sunrise. Of course you didn’t show when we went   searching for you, but we found other lights: firefly, strawberry moon, a tiny catch of it in each other’s teeth.   Someone who saw you said they laid down in the middle of the road and took you all in,   and I’m guessing you’re used to that—people falling over themselves to catch a glimpse of you   and your weird mint-glow shushing itself over the lake. Aurora, I’d rather stay indoors with him—even if it meant   a rickety hotel and its wood paneling, golf carpeting in the bathrooms, and grainy soapcakes. Instead   of waiting until just the right hour of the shortest blue-night of the year when you finally felt moved   enough to collide your gas particles with sun particles— I’d rather share sunrise with him and loon call   over the lake with him, the slap of shoreline threaded through screen windows with him. My heart   slams in my chest, against my shirt—it’s a kind of kindling you’d never be able to light on your own.            Copyright © 2016 Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “The epistolary poem underscores the best intimacies that can arise from a letter: the measured and focused address to a specific recipient. This epistle is from a series addressed to various elements from the natural world that obviously cannot respond. I like to think of writing epistles as a writing towards—and attempting to love, or at least recognize—the strangers that live inside each of us.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil   Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of Lucky Fish (Tupelo Press, 2011). She is the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi and lives in Oxford, Mississippi.   Photo credit: Martin Bentsen Poetry by Nezhukumatathil   Lucky Fish (Tupelo Press, 2011)  "A Meadow" by Lucie Brock-Broido "Wedding Cake" by Naomi Shihab Nye "Unveiling, Wakefield" by Gail Mazur Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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