"At Night" by Stanley Plumly

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 7, 2019   At Night   Stanley Plumly

When did I know that I'd have to carry it around in order to have it when I need it, say in a pocket,   the dark itself not dark enough but needing to be added to, handful by handful if necessary, until   the way my mother would sit all night in a room without the lights, smoking, until she disappeared?   Where would she go, because I would go there. In the morning, nothing but a blanket and all her   absence and the feeling in the air of happiness. And so much loneliness, a kind of purity of being   and emptiness, no one you are or could ever be, my mother like another me in another life, gone   where I will go, night now likely dark enough I can be alone as I've never been alone before.            Copyright © 2019 Stanley Plumly. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "It's a poem of the moment with almost no revision. It literally came out in that free verse, couplet form. I was able to hit that one note about the dark, how you can go into it and find its meaning if you just sit there long enough and live inside it." —Stanley Plumly   Stanley Plumly is the author of ten books of poetry, including Against Sunset (W. W. Norton, 2016) and Old Heart (W. W. Norton, 2009), nominated for the National Book Award, and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Paterson Poetry Prize. He is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and lives in Frederick, Maryland.   Poetry by Plumly   Against Sunset (W. W. Norton, 2016) "Only as the Day Is Long" by Dorianne Laux "Portrait of My Father as a Pianist" by Cynthia Dew Oka "Tomorrow and Tomorrow Again" by Craig Morgan Teicher March Guest Editor: Maggie Smith   Thanks to Maggie Smith, author of Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Smith about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. 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

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