"In the Beginning God Said Light" by Mary Szybist

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 1, 2018   In the Beginning God Said Light   Mary Szybist

and there was light. Now God says, Give them a little theatrical lighting and they're happy, and we are. So many of us dressing each morning, testing endless combinations, becoming in our mirrors more ourselves, imagining, in an entrance, the ecstatic weight of human eyes. Now that the sun is sheering toward us, what is left but to let it close in for our close-up? Let us really feel how good it feels to be still in it, making every kind of self that can be looked at. God, did you make us to be your bright accomplices? God, here are our shining spines. Let there be no more dreams of being more than a beginning. Let it be that to be is to be backlit, and then to be only that light.                Copyright © 2018 Mary Szybist. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem is in conversation with my friend Michele Glazer, and especially with the struggles she engages with in her book It Is Hard to Look at What We Came to Think We'd Come to See. It is also, of course, in conversation with Genesis." —Mary Szybist   Mary Szybist's most recent poetry collection is Incarnadine (Graywolf Press, 2013), which won the National Book Award in poetry. She teaches at Lewis & Clark College and lives in Portland, Oregon.   Photo credit: Joni Kabana Poetry by Szybist   Incarnadine (Graywolf Press, 2013) "Wherein space is constructed that matter may reside in. . . " by Michele Glazer from "genesis" by Laura Walker "OK Let's Go" by Maureen N. McLane March Guest Editor: Meghan O'Rourke   Thanks to Meghan O'Rourke, author of Sun in Days (W. W. Norton, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about O'Rourke and our other guest editors for the year. Help Support 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 Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning.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

From Our Advertisers