"sheddings" poems
I.
This is a poet of the river lands,
a lowdown man of the deepest
depth of the valley, where gravity gathers
the waters, the poisons, the trash,
where light comes late and leaves early.
From the window of his small room
the lowdown poet looks out. He watches
the river for ripples, flashes, signs
of beings rising in the undersurface dark,
or lightly swimming upon the flow,
or, for a minnow, descending the deeps
of the air to enter and shatter
forever their momentary reflections,
for the river is a place passing
through a passing place.
The poet, his window, and his poems
are creatures of the shore that the river
gnaws, dissolves, and carries away.
He is a tree of a sort, rooted
in the dark, aspiring to the light,
dependent on both. His poems
are leavings, sheddings, gathered
from the light, as it has come,
and offered to the dark, which he believes
must shine with sight,
with light, dark only to him.
II.
Times will come as they must,
by necessity or his wish, when he leaves
his enclosure and his window,
his homescape of house and garden,
barn and pasture, the incarnate life
of his desire, thought, and daily work.
His grazing animals look up
to watch in silence as he departs.
He sets out at times without even
a path or any guidance other than knowledge
of the place and himself as they were
in time already past. He goes among trees,
climbing again the one hill of his life.
With his hand full of words he goes
into the wordless, wording it barely
in time as he passes. One by one he places
words, balancing on each
as on a small stone in the swift flow
in his anxious patience until
the next arrives, until he has come
at last again into presentiment
of the Real, the wholly real in its grand
composure, for which as before
he knows no word. And here again
he must stop. Here by luck or grace he may
find rest, which he has been seeking
all along. Sometimes by the time’s flaws
and his own, he fails. And then
by luck or grace he will be given
another day to try again, to go maybe
yet farther before again he must stop.
He is a gatherer of fragments, a cobbler
of pieces. Piece by piece he tells
a story without end, for in the time
of this world no end can come.
It is the story of eternity’s shining,
much shadowed, much put off,
in time. And time, however long, falls short.
Wendell Berry's most recent books include It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays, New Collected Poems, and A Place in Time, the newest volume in his Port William series.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 11:30 AM UTC
December's red chambers
had little bells made of silver.
A celebrated black-out i call it,
till the following year's hustle period revives us back to the usual struggle.
It is a period to eat the fattened animals,
if you dont get your share, its nothing personal.
White and wet sheddings
falling from the sky un-ending.
So beautiful and warm a season,
lots of visits to be made
and gifts exchanged.
Wet and wild kisses amongst couples.
Sweet smothering at its peak at night.
Surrender and be engulfed by the wild fires.
Passion tastes like candy.
We'll do this
till day light finds us.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 3:15 AM UTC
A periwinkle snap of the fingers
A glazed-over, ungazed-at afterthought of a dimwitted maker
Allowing only specks of atmosphere to puncture through for gasps of air
An assassination without capacity for reflection or modesty.
Broadening my horizons, my eyes adjusting to the sun's sheddings,
I notice the satin ribbons of the west, trotting over the hills, blood-lusting,
Roaring in anticipation of the persecution of the dry, dusty chandelier to the north
Forcing the lumination,
Breaking open the porous night-covering threatening to its final breath
The self-mutilation to bring it and its 3 navigational acquaintances to the bone-encrusted, sadistic
Hell of the humans, modern-day Terra, the disease-laced, frayed blanket of Gaea.
And as I viciously avert my eyes as the first blow finds a weak exposed abdomen,
I pray to God that I might participate in this brawl,
And I curse high heaven that it is so fateful a dusk.
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 1:39 AM UTC
Illusions of thy presence
Love, thy dwellings in self illusions
Fabricating for souls
Belladonna your favourite peace offerings
Your speaking smile
Explicit words of happiness
Estatic feelings thou brings
Enchantments a layer thou hides
Thou sheddings of light
Deceiving men and their deeds
Postering love
Forgetting life's hatred
Happiness
Your best addressed to all pains
Hope
Your cunning way to thou's enchantment
Promising Euphoria
A place thou led us there not
Written by Tosan Oluwakemi Thompson
Oct 8, 2020
Oct 8, 2020 at 9:26 AM UTC
When the day comes that I am asked, "what would the cure to all of your troubles look like?.." I will reply, " he wore eyes of green and skin tanned like leather. With a cushion heart sealed tight inside his chest. He is like a first snow draping across the pines, or a scrape made in an old oak. He's a sign, not that winter is coming, or if velvet sheddings. No. He's more chivalrous, a new chapter. When that day comes I know he looks like everything I've ever lost come rushing back at me.
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 1:07 AM UTC
I used to cry at the thought of the hurt you put her through.
Now, I am abhorrent to the thought of putting her through that again.
I now mourn the loss of the pain; the death of the passion.
No matter how visceral the feeling or how thick the air became;
she begged the warmth in her throat to withdraw to her stomach.
The fire laid in wait there, already crackling.
No amount of teardrops could fizzle the burning desire to be understood harder…
or deeper…
or despite.
I recognize exactly where she had been; so utterly gone with only my witness account of where she had been.
Since the dust has settled all that remains is a vast and empty dwelling littered with her sheddings.
The pain had grown inside her, morphing and contorting her familiarity into something new.
Something seemingly broken.
Dec 29, 2024
Dec 29, 2024 at 11:30 AM UTC