‘POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE FROM RILKE’ & Collected Works
Nora Naveen is a passionate photographer exploring and photographing the raw beauty of the world. From expansive vistas to intimate moments of nature, her goal is to inspire others to view the environment with greater care and curiosity. In order to foster a respect for environment and inspire others to discover and preserve it.
POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE FROM RILKE
for here there is no place
that does not see you
even in the morning chill
deepening and the sunlight densely hung the smell of precipitation faded
and remembered
beside the footpath the smooth black stones covered by wet juniper and pinyon needles southwestern landscape
threaded into granite into feldspar
tactile sense of rock
against scrub oak
this it seems like an endless beginning
and then somehow
that same trivial
still January morning
there is no place to go
no only the response
that tomorrow always begs
again the wind will beat into land
the blade will carve because it must
the scrub oak by the gate
will lead into the path
this is it seems the price of admission
how could it be otherwise
how can we know anything different
without witness
without any assured contact
but what is it to remain
or to trust
this small circle spiraling endlessly
in the bondage or some desperate need in the repetition of each day
I see your eyes this night
looking at the bark slowly
blackening in fire
the smell of sandalwood incense indelible even though nothing is left
I pour the water down the drain
I shut the computer
you slip out of black nightshirt
and all seems different
even though
outside the wind forevers onward
I notice the oil of your skin
your red hair down to your waist as if I’ve never seen it before
a single rain at dusk curtains
the outline of branches
weighted by fading sunlight
reddened cirrus painted over horizon
it is no longer possible to be
as we once were
how could it be
for light is brief through the cleared pine forever recovering hue
the will
the lucid slicing of thought
this it seems another admission
embedded in this vast arrangement of order
the small remains of sky
visible through the subdued air
beginning to fall
we know so little
in this life only waiting to come
and who can say anything
beyond grace
the rain is heavy against
the rough tin roof
we wake up in the dark
GESTURES IN BLUE LIGHT
Bone and question
and my hand on your belly.
This slow snow of every morning as a thick wool,
as a smudge
on the window pane.
Calm grace and fugue
and the feel of the cleft in the bark.
A bird gathering flight
and the sound pulls in,
a small sound in
a series of days when time isn’t.
I’ve seen myself
standing there nothing
but a narrow channel
and water,
in the sheets of rain
and the light hemmed in.
DO YOU EVER HAVE THE FEELING THAT THE WORLD’S GONE AND LEFT YOU BEHIND
there’s something primitive
in the mirage
of late horizon
expressing itself
through abandonment
and motive
and the stillness
where thinking is
to mean perception
where shadow and light
mean nothing
but themselves
what occurs
at the edge of vision
where each angle’s silhouette is loaded
stepping through itself
the light can only
scatter against
the tightly knit pine
soaked in rain water
Samuel Gilpin is a poet living in Portland, OR, who holds a Ph.D. in English Lit. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which explains why he works as a door to door salesman. A Prism Review Poetry Contest winner, he has served as the Poetry Editor of Witness Magazine and Book Review Editor of Interim. A Cleveland State University First Book Award finalist, his work has appeared in various journals and magazines, most recently in The Bombay Gin, Omniverse, and Colorado Review. His chapbook Self-Portraits as a Reddening Sky was published by Cathexis Press.
