Notes on Looking
The white of the magnolia
A repertoire of rusted objects
The celestial bodies’ calibrated
But unseen influence upon one’s fate
The ocean lighter than the sky
The eighteen flame-like points
Of the staghorn sumac
Sunrise through acidic humidity
Space compressed through a concave lens
Authenticity undermined by ambiguity
An arrow-pierced saint tied to a tree
A sketch of the fletched shaft
Of the tree alone without the saint
The Original Condition
Calling it a blue distilled from dusk
Does not change the fact
That a shadow has no tangible content
: :
Like an obscure passage
In an obscure text the path
Ahead is overrun with marginalia
: :
Transcribe the disorderly present
As a figment as the attainable
Original condition
: :
At the center of the epic
On a wind-buffeted coast
A bow remains unstrung
: :
To revive the archaic
Find a surface
Upon which to mark
Eric Pankey has three books forthcoming in 2019: a collection of poems, Owl of Minerva, from Milkweed Editions, a collection of prose poems, Alias, and a collections of essays, Vestiges, both from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. He is the Heritage Chair in Writing at George Mason University.
Read five earlier poems by Eric Pankey in Terrain.org.
Header photo by Silver Spiral Arts, courtesy Shutterstock.
