2009

 

The Other Side of the River

 

[...] Often, at night, when the stars seem as close as they do now,

and as full,

And the trees balloon and subside in the way they do

when the wind is right,

As they do now after the rain,

the sea way off with its false sheen,

And the sky that slick black of wet rubber,

I'm 15 again, and back on Mt. Anne in North Carolina

Repairing the fire tower,

Nobody else around but the horse I packed in with,

and five days to finish the job.

Those nights were the longest nights I ever remember,

The lake and pavilion 3,000 feet below

as though modeled in tinfoil,

And even more distant than that,

The last fire out, the after-reflection of Lake Llewellyn

Aluminum glare in the sponged dark,

Lightning bugs everywhere,

the plump stars

Dangling and falling near on their black strings.

 

These nights are like that,

The silvery alphabet of the sea

increasingly difficult to transcribe,

And larger each year, everything farther away, and less clear,

Than I want it to be,

not enough time to do the job,

And faint thunks in the earth,

As though somewhere nearby a horse was nervously pawing

the ground. [...]

 

Charles Wright