April 2015
I spent many years walking the deserts and climbing the mountains of Southern California. Now I spend time in the Eastern Forests from Maryland to Vermont and practice woodworking near the Anacostia River. I hold a PhD in Writing from the University of Houston. My poetry collections are The Structure of Desire (Little Red Tree 2012) winner of a 2013 Nautilus Award in Poetry, a chapbook, The Language of Birds (Finishing Line 2011) and a forthcoming collection, The Book of Maps. Recent honors include the National Hackney Literary Award in Poetry, Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize (in Israel), and Potomac Review Prize. My work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Asian Cha and Aesthetica. Currently I work in Washington, DC. and am an associate fiction editor at JMWW. More at: wflantry.com.
Nightbird
On an iron rail near the shore
we sat watching long masts
darken above broken swells,
blown for a thousand miles
only to finish here
with a small singing of stones,
and as we watched the swells
give themselves
in constant motion to the shore,
I longed to abandon myself
like a wave breaking at last
or a small boat anchored
in the gulf, long cliffs
rising around it
through the storm—
but there are swells that fade
far from the anchored shore
and pilotless boats drifting
forever on a windless sea.
Still, for three weeks I dreamt
of swells that finally find
a coast, of boats
still behind seawalls
but mostly of a small nightbird
blown to an unknown forest
where even the smallest
twig is a sign
unseen before: a signal, a clue
to the hidden shadows cast
by the earth.
Credit: "Night Bird" first appeared in Soundzine
©2015 W.F. Lantry