Prose enough to fill an autumn
fell last night from trees shaken by wind.
Sweepers who rose with the sun
and bai tou weng sing brown
yellow orange red to poetry on gray stone
green grass earth the color of rust. When
the arc of fallen prose curves across a line
of sand between paving stones, it bends
light starlike. Eyes see slant.
[Title poem from my new print collection, Fallen Prose. Click on the title to order from Powell's, visit virtual artists collective poetry, or ask for it at your local independent bookstore. Thanks!]
Congratulations, Steven!
“When/the arc of fallen prose curves across a line/of sand between paving stones, it bends/
light starlike. Eyes see slant.” Wow.
Beautiful title poem.
There’s such beauty here.
Please help with “Bai tou weng”.
I think about your use of ‘fallen’which suggests not just autumn leaves. But the poem itself seems to make no allusion to matters other than trees and leaves and paving stones.
Do you use fallen in a way to celebrate it
as the ‘only’ nature we have? Or are trees the poetry from which fall leaves and poetry prose?And even poem leaves?I have a feeling you are like a Good Poet going to smile a serene yet enigmatic smile and pass this over in silence,sigh!
Do ignore “Or are trees the poetry from which fall leaves and poetry prose?And even poem leaves?” from my comment above!
thanks, river and fingertree… silence and a smile, perhaps, but i would never ignore your comments… “bai tou weng” is “white-headed old man,” a local name for a bird with which i feel a particular affinity…