Thursday Nov 21

WadeSidney Sidney Wade has published five collections of poems, the most recent of which is Stroke (Persea Books, 2008).  Her poems and translations have appeared in a wide variety of journals, including Poetry, The New Yorker, Grand Street, and The Paris Review, among others. She translates the poems of Melih Cevdet Anday, Yahya Kemal, and several others, from the Turkish. She taught at Istanbul University as a Senior Fulbright Fellow in 1989-90. She is the poetry editor of the literary journal Subtropics and was recently elected Secretary/Treasurer of the American Literary Translators’ Association, ALTA.  Her web site is at www.sidneywade.com. 

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Interlude
 
 
the never-ending
meditation
 
continues in
this early
 
morning
squirrels on
 
the porch
and in the trees
 
the lake is still
the silence
 
blue  I’ve belled
the cat  made
 
coffee and
am ready
 
with my pencil
to accept
 
whatever
mind imagines
 
is its music
or its body
 
or its gold
I’ve hung
 
the niger
thistle-seed
 
and am
waiting
 
for the cloud
of goldfinches
 
I hear is near
to appear.
 
 
 

Such Luck
 
 
in the larger
darknesses
 
of the ground
west of sight
 
I’m shouting
at the mountain
 
of silence
and depth
 
when
an eye opens
 
and I open
my mouth
 
to devour
the sound
 
of night
which in time
 
will filter
through all
 
that swings
or hums
 
my fist
is full
 
of letters
my wrist
 
aches like
a drum
 
such luck
to hold

this compendium
of resonant
 
voices in
the sanatorium
 
of my head
whose guest-
 
book is
crowded
 
with the high-
brow and

the low-brow
and whose
 
overseer
in the back-
 
ground prays
every day
 
for my bright
daughters
 
and the black
blue waters
 
they’re swimming
through and all
 
the possibilities
they might
 
swallow
and I know
 
my strength
and sphere
 
may be slight
but look
 
at this
handful
 
of light
I found
 
in a crack
in the ground
 
here
it’s for you