Luci Shaw

Letting down from the water-laden air,
the little fists of rain drum on
the skylight above our bed, imparting
their version of the truth of heaven.

Unable to see far, I write
what’s near. How snow
responds to footprints and
the garden to a spade.
How my cat’s lion face
softens under my caress.
...

Where color is spare
we are given shape
and shade. Angles matter,
the up-thrust of a rock,
the way horizons
map the earth even in the dark.

Though my hearing is never
acute enough to detect
the soft script of the fly’s footfalls
as it dances on the window,
and cleans its wings with its
...

After a time of writing
I stop to let my mind breathe.
This is necessary, otherwise
the thoughts turn gray and
drift.

Even God had to rest
after creating.

So, I didn’t latch onto a holy word
and go into space and, ethereal,
lose touch with my body. But God,
in those thirty slow minutes, you
...

O lesser flake of feathers, O downy
shore-winged picker of cockles

and mites, twig-legged runner through ripples,
who was it called you out of extinction
...

Consider its extravagant fertility! How
dependably it breeds itself in the marrow
to fill again what drains away, the rivers of bright
platelets singing in their arterial dark

Count on the faith that links us
as we pray, about odd things
in each other’s lives, nothing ruinous
—a lost ring, an aching tooth. Even
a request that we forget after...

There’s not much I don’t know about you—
yellow, red, sweet—grubbed up roots and all.
Essential for a vigorous cuisine, alerting
the sense—the crackle of your paper brown outer...

It leaps, breaking the skin of the lake
of possibility, this thing that flashes steel—
this trout of a poem, wild with life, rainbow scales...

The pale bits—twigs, fibers,
pine needles—sun-struck,
fall through the lazy air
as if yearning to be embodied in
my knitting, like gold flecks woven into...

The bell-ringers rise and
fall with the weight of their bells,
holding on for dear life to the pulls,
the ropes rough in their hands,
the young ones lifted up, up...

We see God in the shape
he shows to us. For some, fire.
For others, holy smoke, oil,
a running river, sheep’s crook,
muscular right arm that holds
...

A striking and apt image enhances the cover of this new collection of interviews with 19 leading American poets....

What next, she wonders,
with the angel disappearing, and her room
suddenly gone dark.

Jesus might have died
a dozen times before he died.

An incidental death—tetanus
from a nail, a splinter.

A baptismal drowning.
A drink from a tainted well.

The forest floor bleak, choked
with old leaves, winter wet. Against
the evidence, buds on the wild dogwoods
glisten, listen for a signal, lining up...

Stability is greatly
    overrated.
Why would I ever want to sit
    still and smug as a rock,...

Simple yet magical....