April is, as you must know, National Poetry Month. I’ve been remiss in reminding you; too often poetry is forgotten, like tiny toymakers or the perfect bliss of spinning in a circle with your eyes closed.
Here is a wonderful piece by Franz Wright, courtesy of The Borzoi Reader’s Poem-A-Day initiative.
DEAD SEAGULL
Seagull in the corn, postage stamp-size cornfield in the
woods,
in the middle of the state, and how you ever got here.
Weather
of heaven, July Massachusetts, the blue sky one
endless goodbye.
Give me a minute, maggot-swarming preview of the
future, give
me a moment. You can hone a blade until there is no
blade, or
dwell with magnifying glass so long on a word that
finally it darkens,
is not, and fire in widening circles consumes the world.
For a moment
only, stay with me, mystery. Before you change
completely into
something other, slow cloud, entrance, spell, not yet
remembered
name, stay; tell me what you mean. A dead bird is not
a dead bird
I was once told by someone who knows.
Excerpt from KINDERTOTENWALD © 2011 by Franz Wright. You can learn more about Franz Wright’s latest book of poems here: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/194205/kindertotenwald-by-franz-wright
