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Her turtle throws Platonic stars on walls
Three poems by Robert Griffith
Robert Griffith
Geometry
- Above the lake, the little birds flit
- in shallow sine waves, skimming low
- to catch the mayfly hatch, and leaving cold,
- concentric rings where beaks and wingtips kiss
- the glass. The morning light is pale and clear,
- a whiteboard where the shapes of all the world
- are waiting to be drawn. I stand and watch
- the birds, their catenaries steep and wild.
- What force is this that stokes their frantic hearts,
- that holds me shorebound in the morning chill?
- I’m sure I’ll never know. Yet still I feel
- the pull of all that life, and even more
- I cannot help but feel your gravid heart
- asleep behind me in the cabin. It tugs
- me back from apogee, and I begin
- to fall, a grateful arc across the beach,
- a curving path that takes me back to you.
The Dark Between the Stars
- From the dresser where it sits, green and plush,
- Her turtle throws Platonic stars on walls
- And ceiling both. They hang there in the hush,
- A sky where nothing moves and no star falls,
- And light my daughter’s room in firefly glow.
- Awake and curled beneath the sheets, she grips
- Imaginary oars and starts to row.
- Her ocean’s midnight black and vast. It slips
- Beneath her bed, a purling beast that sweeps
- Her farther out to sea, to distant isles
- Where nights are long and hidden danger sleeps.
- Back home, I unfold maps and count the miles.
- I watch the constellations. So bright and far
- Away, she plies the dark between the stars.
The End of Time
- So now, forever now, the sun hangs
- like a cold and pendent fire upon a bough,
- and the whole serrated sea is still, sculpted
- glass and foam beneath a watercolor sky.
- And even here, far inland, in a place
- where grass is trimmed each week, where robins cry
- the dawn and sidewalks girdle all we know
- and love, even here the gears of time
- have shivered to a stop. The air is fixed,
- the silence certain. Peace and horror drop
- heavy as a velvet curtain, and all
- the bright, unnumbered world begins to dim.
- The final photons fall like flakes of snow,
- like incandescent bits of time that cling
- to faces, hands, and lips. And as the world
- goes dark, a stage that fades to black, we glow.
Rob Griffith’s latest book, The Moon from Every Window (David Robert Books, 2011), was nominated for the 2013 Poets’ Prize; and his previous book, A Matinee in Plato’s Cave, was the winner of the 2009 Best Book of Indiana Award. His work has appeared in PN Review, Poetry, The North American Review, Poems & Plays, The Oxford American, and many others. He is the editor of the journal Measure and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Evansville, Indiana.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Her turtle throws Platonic stars on walls
Three poems by Robert Griffith
Her turtle throws Platonic stars on walls
Three poems by Robert Griffith
Robert Griffith
Geometry
- Above the lake, the little birds flit
- in shallow sine waves, skimming low
- to catch the mayfly hatch, and leaving cold,
- concentric rings where beaks and wingtips kiss
- the glass. The morning light is pale and clear,
- a whiteboard where the shapes of all the world
- are waiting to be drawn. I stand and watch
- the birds, their catenaries steep and wild.
- What force is this that stokes their frantic hearts,
- that holds me shorebound in the morning chill?
- I’m sure I’ll never know. Yet still I feel
- the pull of all that life, and even more
- I cannot help but feel your gravid heart
- asleep behind me in the cabin. It tugs
- me back from apogee, and I begin
- to fall, a grateful arc across the beach,
- a curving path that takes me back to you.
The Dark Between the Stars
- From the dresser where it sits, green and plush,
- Her turtle throws Platonic stars on walls
- And ceiling both. They hang there in the hush,
- A sky where nothing moves and no star falls,
- And light my daughter’s room in firefly glow.
- Awake and curled beneath the sheets, she grips
- Imaginary oars and starts to row.
- Her ocean’s midnight black and vast. It slips
- Beneath her bed, a purling beast that sweeps
- Her farther out to sea, to distant isles
- Where nights are long and hidden danger sleeps.
- Back home, I unfold maps and count the miles.
- I watch the constellations. So bright and far
- Away, she plies the dark between the stars.
The End of Time
- So now, forever now, the sun hangs
- like a cold and pendent fire upon a bough,
- and the whole serrated sea is still, sculpted
- glass and foam beneath a watercolor sky.
- And even here, far inland, in a place
- where grass is trimmed each week, where robins cry
- the dawn and sidewalks girdle all we know
- and love, even here the gears of time
- have shivered to a stop. The air is fixed,
- the silence certain. Peace and horror drop
- heavy as a velvet curtain, and all
- the bright, unnumbered world begins to dim.
- The final photons fall like flakes of snow,
- like incandescent bits of time that cling
- to faces, hands, and lips. And as the world
- goes dark, a stage that fades to black, we glow.
Rob Griffith’s latest book, The Moon from Every Window (David Robert Books, 2011), was nominated for the 2013 Poets’ Prize; and his previous book, A Matinee in Plato’s Cave, was the winner of the 2009 Best Book of Indiana Award. His work has appeared in PN Review, Poetry, The North American Review, Poems & Plays, The Oxford American, and many others. He is the editor of the journal Measure and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Evansville, Indiana.
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