With a new book coming out -- and about 30 poems to retire from my send-out notebook -- it seems a good time to retire some other poems as well.
I wrote this poem toward the beginning of my one-bad-poem years, in 2005. I've always been fond of it, but it's gone out a kajillion times (well, 12 or so times) and no one has ever begged to publish it. So, enough's enough and I'm publishing it here.
I've always loved mornings best, and fresh beginnings, and this poem dwells on such small things.
Unbruised
If death is what makes
life precious, will we in heaven
stop loving so
what we no longer fear losing?
When life stops
being a miracle,
will the bloody brilliance
of a beating heart
no longer astound us?
In heaven will we savor
the taste of strawberries,
the scent of coffee,
the slap of wet sheets
on a clothesline?
Will sleep, that small death,
still be allowed us, or will
waking, constant,
irrevocable, gild nothing,
no morning clamor
of crows, no dew?
Will the newborn's curled fingers
and yawn be lost to us?
When we fall, what stains us
if not the death of the grass?
Wearing that white robe,
won't the thought of your knees,
unbruised, unbleeding,
make you long for the earth
in all its flawed beauty?
--Bethany Reid (2005)
For news of my new book, THE PEAR TREE, 2023 Sally Albiso Poetry Award winner, watch my main blog, https://www.bethanyareid.com/.
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