Posts Tagged ‘Ling Wei’
McLagan, Sheffield, Howell, Bly, and Faulkner
Poems by Elizabeth McLagan
A Feather Falls from the Wing
of Light
Today, someone has left like a letter
addressed to a white forest which goes on
trailing its blue sleepless shadows. Snow
lips, snow eyes, snow pillows. Like ripples
on an overcast ocean, belts of fog
above a blue core. What is it to lie down
in sleep and lie down again into the sleep
of death? Is there a dream to usher
the spirit across – a white hand stretched out?
Once, I lay down in snow, flakes striking
the tent like sparks or hard rain, except
it was lightest powder falling all night
into the bowl of the lake. Was your death
such a night, warm and unmeasured?
A snowshoe hare passed by, ghost moons
drifted into the lungs of trees. Like needles
falling, like scratches on a glass plate. The light
went ashy. The ink glittered before it dried.
(from The Bitter Oleander Volume 12 Number 2,
Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award Winner 2006)