Jennifer Atkinson

3 poems
from Gray Realm

REVERIE’S BLITHE INVITATION 

Reverie’s blithe 
                           invitation arrives, that hint
as of salt on from-afar winds, 
the very air                                         
                   calling—
abandon the sextant will—
for departure.                        
        Away on an unknown sea—                 
unmapped or off-the-map—of gray-blue
inadvertencies,           
        unclaimed 
immensities within—                                       

How can there be error?  
How to stray 
                       when there’s no destination?  
And yet—
to embark 
                  in this or that direction
into pure undelimited
                                    space, 
is to forego other ways, to surrender
the breadth of color
                                 to line. 

In that moment,
certainty is a valuable delusion
                                           all at once
allowing that quick first stroke—                                           
as when a bow parts the vastness
                                                      and leaves
a wake on the delible surface— 
line crossing line, 
                            tangents and rare contingencies 
discovered, 
                   a scatter of green 
archipelago—as enticing as ellipsis…

And yet—
                   the winds will give out, will shift 

direction, then other pleasures hold sway,
pleasures not
                      of stasis but balance—
of form,
               the other joy.

Action calls for counter-action—
                                                     daring farther
or waiting 
                  for dark 
to consult the stars, anchor a while,
or chart a new course onward…

 

STAR RIVER NIGHT

It’s not a falls 
but a record of falling,

the river’s 
spill into empty

dark: drops
and splashes graph

in the aggregate scatter
a way;

the running over
isn’t random but is,

within the structures and strictures 
of the physical, free.


     | | |


“Gravity makes the image”


    | | |

One star—         

a drop 
in the River of Heaven,

that rush so unstinting it looks still,
can seem 

to pulse,
to disambiguate from the sinuous

arching
body of light

it’s a silver scruple of,
can seem 

somehow not itself
abstract,

but an actual 
mote of fire,

a dense, literal seething.

 

NIGHT VISION

  

When I was a child I saw what I called angels among the trees.  The angels drew me. I loved them because they appeared only to me. They belonged to me. I didn’t think to be afraid.  I loved them because they appeared. They were tall, translucent, and fluttered like torch flames.  I knew to tell no one.  I surprise myself by telling now.  The silence around and within them swirled with a furied longing to speak.  They were mute.  They only appeared.  They drew me. Often I walked out at night. I didn’t think. I loved. I saw as one sees by torchlight, by knowing already what’s there to see.  They appeared tall as torches and fluttered. They longed to speak. I knew to tell no one.  I was a child. They drew me. The silence among them swirled translucent. By telling now I surprise myself.  Angels I called them because I loved them. They were tall.

 

Jennifer Atkinson is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently THE THINKING EYE. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at George Mason University.