[New-Poetry] Max Garland

[David Graham]

On Tuesday night I heard Max Garland read from his new collection--a  
long awaited new book, from my perspective.  I recommend it, and him  
as a reader, highly.


Day So Bright

Was-lost-but-now-I’m-found is the shade
of orange in the oaks today. Was-frost
but-now-I’m-wind is how they move.

It makes you want to plant an acorn
or something. Carve a gourd.
Trace the veins of a leaf out to the far
reaches of space. Fork some timothy.
Fescue?

It’s a day so bright you can’t help
but wish you were downright Amish,
like let’s build a barn, quick and high,
haymaker swings of the hammers
like blue birdcalls over the stubbled fields.

Let there be pies, and brush-thick beards,
and bonnets over the politics.
Let the world blink like a stranded grain.
The day be sufficient. The feed corn
rise to the brim of the crib.
The coal of sunset.

Let the heart be held still by the work of the day
retracing its route through the muscles
and the night come down
like hair undone
in the star-like static of the cold.


--Max Garland.  Hunger Wide as Heaven  Cleveland State University  
Poetry Center, 2006.

==========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
==========================================



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