Elegy for Vernon Watkins
You visit our evergreen city where rain smells
like apple or the sun moored at low tide.
You are here to show us the path
to white blossoms, nightmare, frailty, the surprise
of line and story of a snow-muted sea.
You said make each line breathe like a sandpiper,
hear rain dissolve the bitter notes in our song,
let the river in our lives tighten the measure,
bear the violence of youth and rage.
With the modesty of a winter wren, you promise
no stronger light reveals itself to child
or elder than the rose in the garden or dream,
unicorn and the fertile clap of thunder.
Shy as any bird you named from Wales,
you turn to walk alone, listen to water's
map-less refrain, remember your fountain honed
from stone on Swansea cliffs. With empty hands
you watch for words to swim to you as hungry
as the herring gulls. Days later we hear
you chose to quit out-rhyming death
as a leap on the tennis court shook
your spirit from the next play.
You take leave of Seattle and our lives
in a manner you had told in a story-
the hawk that fell from a vermilion cloud;
rose with a fish in its claw
from the page-torn and bracketed waves.
like apple or the sun moored at low tide.
You are here to show us the path
to white blossoms, nightmare, frailty, the surprise
of line and story of a snow-muted sea.
You said make each line breathe like a sandpiper,
hear rain dissolve the bitter notes in our song,
let the river in our lives tighten the measure,
bear the violence of youth and rage.
With the modesty of a winter wren, you promise
no stronger light reveals itself to child
or elder than the rose in the garden or dream,
unicorn and the fertile clap of thunder.
Shy as any bird you named from Wales,
you turn to walk alone, listen to water's
map-less refrain, remember your fountain honed
from stone on Swansea cliffs. With empty hands
you watch for words to swim to you as hungry
as the herring gulls. Days later we hear
you chose to quit out-rhyming death
as a leap on the tennis court shook
your spirit from the next play.
You take leave of Seattle and our lives
in a manner you had told in a story-
the hawk that fell from a vermilion cloud;
rose with a fish in its claw
from the page-torn and bracketed waves.
Page(s) 1
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The