23 April 2009

Charles Wright

[from Charles Wright's Sestets, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009]

With Alighieri on Basin Creek

All four ducks are gone now.
                                           Only the mountain remains,
Upside down like Purgatorio
In the pond's reflection,
                                    no tree at the top, and no rivers.

No matter. Above it, in either incarnation,
The heavens, in all their golden numbers, begin to unstack.
Down here, as night comes on, we look for Guido,
        his once best friend, and Guido's father, and Bertran de Born.

Sestets: Poems

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