Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
We're working to fix a technical issue causing problems with our broadcasts. We'll have it resolved as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.

"Light"

Reading Novalis in Montana, poems by Melissa Kwasny

An artist places the intangible
              and tangible objects on the table together:
drift of diamond light from the Sky of the Mind
with the Asian poppy, the plate of wild seedling plums.

The direction is set, sun caught in eastern branches
when our empty hands have their other side of fullness.
              Still life: morning star. Moon.
Dawn. The sun (who is A Bird Singing in the Moonlight).

What to believe? Even the question fades,
              dissipates in preparation for its answer, glad
to be in the present which is dark and slow and dull.
Glad to last to lie on the ground to sleep. To drink water.

And the observance of solitude. Day by day, they say,
              and the use of herbs, the reordering of the body.
Tell the people to help each other, they say
from the other side. Things are only the crosshatch of actions.

Still life: morning star. One begins again.
              One begins an hopes to avoid getting lost again.
Still life. How many children know
the stations of the moon, the b for birth and d for destruction?

The sun moves through a chorus of wastelands.
              The sun rises and rises. Still, this arrangement.
Winter bouquet. (Rose Haws and
Hellebore
.) Each one a harbinger. Each shadowing the other.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Write Question blog
The Write Question on Facebook
The Write Question podcast

Melissa Kwasny has published four collections of poems, two novels, and the anthology "Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950." She is also, with M. L. Smoker, editor of "I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights." She lives near Jefferson City, Montana.

"Light" is the eighth poem in a twelve-part series titled "Directions," which was published in Melissa Kwasny's 2009 collection Reading Novalis in Montana.

Read what she had to say about the book.

Become a sustaining member for as low as $5/month
Make an annual or one-time donation to support MTPR
Pay an existing pledge or update your payment information
Related Content