All I Ever Wanted by Katie Ford

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 15, 2017   All I Ever Wanted   Katie Ford

for DMK   When I thought it was right to name my desires, what I wanted of life, they seemed to turn like bleating sheep, not to me, who could have been a caring, if unskilled, shepherd, but to the boxed-in hills beyond which the blue mountains sloped down with poppies orange as crayfish all the way to the Pacific seas in which the hulls of whales steered them in search of a mate for whom they bellowed in a new, highly particular song we might call the most ardent articulation of love, the pin at the tip of evolution, modestly shining.                                    In the middle of my life it was right to say my desires but they went away. I couldn't even make them out, not even as dots now in the distance.                                           Yet I see the small lights of winter campfires in the hills— teenagers in love often go there for their first nights—and each yellow-white glow tells me what I can know and admit to knowing, that all I ever wanted was to sit by a fire with someone who wanted me in measure the same to my wanting. To want to make a fire with someone, with you, was all.            Copyright © 2017 Katie Ford. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "A bit more than two years after the end of my marriage, I remembered that the history of poetry stores within it the history of making a homemade gift for someone you love. On Christmas Eve I wrote this poem, and on Christmas Day I gave it away." —Katie Ford   Katie Ford is the author of Blood Lyrics (Graywolf Press, 2014). She teaches at the University of California, Riverside, and lives in South Pasadena, California.   Photo credit: Helge Brekke  Poetry by Ford   Blood Lyrics (Graywolf Press, 2014)  "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee "In Praise of Their Divorce" by Tony Hoagland "Anthem" by Melissa Stein Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. 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

From Our Advertisers & Sponsors