Charles Wright(b. 1935)
As Our Bodies Rise, Our Names Turn into Light
The sky unrolls like a rug,
unwelcoming, gun-grey,
Over the Blue Ridge.6
Mothers are calling their children in,
mellifluous syllables, floating sounds.
The traffic shimmies and settles back.
The doctor has filled his truck with leaves
Next door, and a pair of logs.
Salt stones litter the street,
The snow falls and the wind drops.
How strange to have a name, any name, on this poor earth.
January hunkers down,
the icicle deep in her throat—
The days become longer, the nights ground bitter and cold,
Single grain by single grain
Everything flows toward structure,
last ache in the ache for God.