City of Light Across the Water

Poppy Red’s Encaustic Painting

Charles Wright won the Pulitzer Prize (1998) for Black Zodiac.

Wright served as U.S. poet laureate of the United States from 2014 to 2015.

On writing poetry, Charles Wright  says:

“Language is the element of definition, the defining and descriptive incantation. It puts the coin between our teeth. It whistles the boat up. It shows us the city of light across the water. Without language there is no poetry, without poetry there’s just talk. Talk is cheap and proves nothing. Poetry is dear and difficult to come by. But it poles us across the river and puts music in our ears.”

With My Breath

I puff up cheeks
puff like a fish;
croak like a frog;
ribbit like cricket.

Whistle like wind,
growl like a lion
sigh like balloon
losing its air;

Shout like a giant,
whisper through whiskers
murmur like hound
seeking its find;

Breathe in sweet oxygen,
cleanse all the toxins,
breathe in and out
’til I thrive like the air!

Jeanne Poland

Atop the Hill

Atop the hill where I reside at Hudson’s highest point, my townhouse spies.

Everything whistles, twists and flies:
Deer, and wind and goldfinch cries.

Vistas spread from mount to mount
While rivers’ waves too much to count

Rush on
Upon
The great beyond.

Jeanne Poland 7/20/11