-
Empty Sky
- Callaloo
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 25, Number 4, Fall 2002
- pp. 1036-1037
- 10.1353/cal.2002.0162
- Article
- Additional Information
Callaloo 25.4 (2002) 1036-1037
[Access article in PDF]
Empty Sky
Ed Roberson
The day's change emptied
from my pockets: copper pennieson the desk surface, pads
a water lily figure graphsshiny newness as wet
on. The pond star not yetrisen above
the daily furniture of an horizon,the desk water
I see just the figure of the flower
beneath. The buy the bet the act
of faith in the offering castpennies on
the felt green pondwater emptied of the changes
the mind's been through clears as stillnessas light upon light opening light
writing itself to the surface asit does on sight.
— Desk water.
I see just the figure of the flowerbeneath. making toward sense
the float upballoon of a bud
coming to light feelingbursts upward not so much the flower -
no smell - a radiant sting further up [End Page 1036]between the eyes the worksheet gone nova
from behind the ears gravity's waived voicefrom up the back of the neck
the day's changes emptied.Pocket out of which is
emptied the takeon flesh as sack
of bones of walking dice winnings the day,jackpot in
the body as container,entire nirvana lake of coin
figures of blossom bells and whistlesempties as it fulfills.
This shirt off my backnakedness
puts me in the streetthe dewy job or no job
to undress from works or nonedone.
I've lost everythingto these pennies'
wakening of a surface on the deskonly permanent
as the moving water or the changinglight I draw thirst for.
The bowl of myday turned up held out
and the larger skyclear
emptied into it.
Ed Roberson is author of a number of volumes of poems, including When Thy King Is a Boy, Lucid Interval as Integral Music, Voices Cast Out To Talk Us In (winner of the 1995 Iowa Poetry Prize), and Just In: Word of Navigational Change, New and Selected Work (winner of the 1998 National Poetry Series Competition). He lives in New Jersey.
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