Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

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, The Thread is celebrating Poetry Fridays. Each Friday in April, we will publish a selection of poetry from local independent publishing houses Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions and Coffee House Press.

Today's selections come from Dana Gioia, William Brewer and Dawn Lundy Martin.


of steep hills and jutting glacial rock,


where the low-running streams are quick to flood


                                                              A place


no engineers can master—where the roads


must twist like tendrils up the mountainside


on narrow cliffs where boulders block the way.


Where tall black trunks of lightning-scalded pine


push through the tangled woods to make a roost


              And sharp inclines


where twisting through the thorn-thick underbrush,


scratched and exhausted, one turns suddenly


a spot so hard to reach that no one comes—


a hiding place, a shrine for dragonflies


and nesting jays, a sign that there is still


one piece of property that won't be owned.


then walked him to the ER to score pills.

          its webbed feet along jungle floor. What of our mechanical arm,


our off-melody? Purpose in the gathering, I know, dear self. It rains


When wind is wrought, whole song fallen from its lip, some black


unknown. What speech into hard god breath just as night park is godless? 

"To sing the blue song of longing—" from 

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Tracy Mumford

Author

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we are showcasing weekly poems from Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions and Coffee House Press.

Poetry Friday: Landscape, chance and longing

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