Indian Riverby Wallace Stevens The trade-wind jingles the rings in the nets around racks by the docks on Indian River.It is the same jingle of the water among roots under the banks of the palmettoes,It is the same jingle of the red-bird breasting the orange-trees out of the cedars.Yet there is no spring in Florida,Continue reading “Indian River by Wallace Stevens”
Category Archives: states
A Single Night in the City of Gold by Debora Greger
A Single Night in the City of Goldby Debora Greger In the lost city of gold that was Oroville,the golden age had come and gone.I was the only person in the vast movie house.What was showing that winter nightthirty years ago? The Gold Rush, of course,as if it had arrived in 1925 and never left.Continue reading “A Single Night in the City of Gold by Debora Greger”
Corn Maze by David Barber
Corn Maze by David Barber Here is where You can get nowhere Faster than ever As you go under Deeper and deeper In the fertile smother Of another acre Like any other You can’t peer over And then another And everywhere You veer or hare There you are Farther and farther Afield than before ButContinue reading “Corn Maze by David Barber”
Danvers, Illinois by Richard Spilman
Danvers, Illinois by Richard Spilman There were words Straight as corn, Simple to the tongue as corn, Sentences seried like a field In neat geometrics; And there were moments When the wind stopped And the corn stood silent And heat etched whorls Like rolled glass above the road, When we lifted our heads And listened.Continue reading “Danvers, Illinois by Richard Spilman”
Along Lake Michigan by Brad Leithauser
Along Lake Michiganby Brad Leithauser The road abruptly changed to dirt,Thinned until grasses brushedThe car on both sides, and thenEnded in a loop before the marsh.We hiked along an arm of land heldFirm by cedars, the lake breakingLike an ocean on one side,The rippling, flooded wetlands wideAs a lake on the other.You found a broadContinue reading “Along Lake Michigan by Brad Leithauser”
Ohio Fields After Rain by David Baker
Ohio Fields After Rainby David Baker The slow humped backs of ice ceasedto shadow the savannahs of Ohio millenniaago, right where we’ve sailed to a stop.The shaken woman leaves open her car doorand familiar as relatives we touch handsin the middle of the wet black road.To the north new corn enriches by the hour. SouthContinue reading “Ohio Fields After Rain by David Baker”
The Late Wisconsin Spring by John Koethe
The Late Wisconsin Spring by John Koethe Snow melts into the earth and a gentle breezeLoosens the damp gum wrappers, the stale leavesLeft over from autumn, and the dead brown grass.The sky shakes itself out. And the invisible birdsWinter put away somewhere return, the air relaxes,People start to circulate again in twos and threes.The dominant feelingsContinue reading “The Late Wisconsin Spring by John Koethe”
When in Wisconsin Where I Once Had Time by John Engels
When in Wisconsin Where I Once Had Timeby John Engels When in Wisconsin where I once had timethe flyway swans came whistlingto the rotten Green Bay ice and stayed,not feeding, four days, maybe five, I shouted and threw stones to see them fly.Blue herons followed, or came first.I shot a bittern’s wing off with myContinue reading “When in Wisconsin Where I Once Had Time by John Engels”
California Hills in August by Dana Gioia
California Hills in August by Dana Gioia I can imagine someone who found these fields unbearable, who climbed the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust, cracking the brittle weeds underfoot, wishing a few more trees for shade. An Easterner especially, who would scorn the meagerness of summer, the dry twisted shapes of black elm,Continue reading “California Hills in August by Dana Gioia”
Driving in Oklahoma by Carter Revard
Driving in Oklahoma by Carter Revard On humming rubber along this white concrete, lighthearted between the gravities of source and destination like a man halfway to the moon in this bubble of tuneless whistling at seventy miles an hour from the windvents, over prairie swells rising and falling, over the quick offramp that drops toContinue reading “Driving in Oklahoma by Carter Revard”
POETRY and PLACES 