Why They Have to Be Called Aubades
- Why They Have to Be Called Aubades
Because of the fire hidden in all things,the witch in the backyard from childhood,the car crossing your center lane face-on.Beware, you do not know how tall you are,as Dickinson said, till you’re asked to rise—
Beware of how the light will come to youwithout asking, mornings, evening-mornings,if you declare it so, aubade, aubade.
Beware of singularity, its crack.Remember how far down you fell and climbed,fell, climbed the slippery sidesto arrive here, space of definition,morning between stars you’ve never seenuntil you place yourself between them thereand everything indescribable nowand, therefore, subject of your poetry. [End Page 150]
Peter Cooley has recently published his ninth book of poetry, Night Bus to the Afterlife (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2014). He is the Senior Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Director of Creative Writing at Tulane University, and the winner of the 2014 Marble Faun Poetry Prize from the Faulkner Society in New Orleans.
