"The Silver Thread" by Afaa Michael Weaver

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend November 27, 2017   The Silver Thread   Afaa Michael Weaver

The fern gathers where the water seldom goes unless the storms swell this world of wise choices, the loud trickle of clear tongues of the stream licking the edges of rock, while up ahead a curve hides tomorrow from our crystal ball, the thing we are afraid to admit we have, the guarantee we hide from faith. In the woods our dog is lost from time to time, until suddenly we hear her paws inside winter's death becoming the yearly promise of new undergrowth, her careless paws that beg each day for the next bowl of treats, true faith in what love yields. The rain stops not long after it threatens to soak us with cold and chills, the trees open to the gradual break of blue inside the gray, turning the clouds naked and white under the sun, the stream disappears under a bridge made by men so trucks can crawl back and forth over this road of dirt with its one row of grass, where our tongues make a silver thread finding its way past the fear.            Copyright © 2017 Afaa Michael Weaver. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "In writing this love poem, I was reflecting on a moment when my partner, Kristen, and I took a long walk on a rainy spring day in Connecticut, where we live in a rural area known as Cream Hill. I was thinking of capturing the sense of occupying the present with an eye to emptiness, and timelessness. In that sense the poem is a Daoist rendering of a moment where ideas of hope, fear, faith, and love are accepted all at once, taking nature as flora and fauna as well as what makes us human." —Afaa Michael Weaver   Afaa Michael Weaver's new book is Spirit Boxing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). He has retired from Simmons College, where he held the alumnae endowed chair for twenty years. A member of the core faculty in the Drew MFA program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation, he lives in West Cornwall, Connecticut. Poetry by Weaver   Spirit Boxing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017) "We have no choice in the bodies that hold us" by Holly Amos "Deep in the Quiet Wood" by James Weldon Johnson "American Pharoah" by Ada Limón Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! 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