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This piece is about 2 printed pages long. It is copyright © Annie Finch and Jacket magazine 2008.See our [»»] Copyright notice. The Internet address of this page is http://jacketmagazine.com/36/finch3.shtml
She That
The source of night is madness. I am she
that knows the way of madness. I am found
on edges of high capascades. I be
one of the edge of nutrients. Free me
and all the vanished kind find tapestry.
Resolution
I'll call those scattered parts back to my side,
and marshal them, so power cannot hide
so far inside its brow and cloudy skies;
I'll call the night attendants to put on
their green control and walk up to my side
with thin and arching tendons bending low,
speaking my parts, the ones they used to hide.
They will walk easily, for they have shown
the way to many easy thoughts before.
They will be friendly, since they will not know
the world without them, the tormented one.
They will speak softly. They will not be hard.
They are the night attendants; they, I know,
will count for me when all around my side
a tighter world comes on. How could they hide?
I'll open out tonight, and from outside
I'll call those corners in, whose breathing shows
that globes are simple, and that light can find
one dent beyond one valley at a time.
Night Rain
With will the flicker of a candle flame
goes out though blown and in the iron house
the rain continues. This is such a house,
whose dripping galaxies untie dark time —
the drops that land are silent. In between,
the noise of growing flowers, like a scene
of gravity spent on the land between.
Annie Finch. Photo by Roy Finch.
Annie Finch is professor of English at the University of Southern Maine and Director of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. She is the author of four books of poetry, The Encyclopedia of Scotland, Eve, Calendars, and the forthcoming Among the Goddesses: An Epic and Libretto, and author or editor of eight books about poetry, most recently Multiformalisms: Postmodern Poetics of Form coedited with Suan Schultz. These poems are from the forthcoming ms., “Lost Poems 1985–1989”. Net: http://www.anniefinch.com/