Three Poems by Emily Grosholz
PN Review 235, May - June 2017
Stargazing
There is the moon, so chaste and cold,
Waning from full, but beautiful, with runes
And ruins on its face, with seas and clouds.
And there is Mars, as dark as blood.
There’s the Wain, an asterismic cart
Bearing its harvest stars across the heart
Of space, and there’s the diamond bolt,
Polaris, constant, motionless, despite
The provocation of the reeling stars.
Leaving the Garden
Ruins are traces. Discourse on the rainbow:
Optics rewritten as a science not
Of light rays nor of images, but shadows.
For there are certain passions of the light
Illuminating, altering the screens,
The camera oscura, of the eye.
The eye itself incapable of vision.
Go calculate the angles of refraction,
As fountains make the rainbow visible,
Fountains and prisms, vapors, vestiges.
For God has left his mark upon the world,
The glory of the shadows. Stamp and seal.
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Holding Pattern
We can’t remember half of what we know.
They hug each other and then turn away.
One thinks in silence, never let me go.
The sky above the airport glints with snow
That melts beneath the laws it must obey.
We can’t remember half of what we know.
His arms are strong and warm, his breath is slow;
She holds him close, not knowing what to say.
One thinks in silence, never let me go.
Time silts the rivers, ravaging the flow
Of wave on wavelet, and suspends the day.
We can’t remember half of what we know.
This holding is agreement to forego,
This flight another strategy to stay.
One thinks in silence, never let me go.
The silver trees spring back to life, although
Their roots are gilded by the leaves’ decay.
We can’t remember half of what we know,
One thinks in silence. Never let me go.
These poems by Emily Grosholz are taken from PN Review 235, May - June 2017. Further contributions by Grosholz are available in the archive to paying subscribers.