April 2015
Poetry reminds us that we’re not alone. It renders our solitude communal, chair by chair across the land. “How It Is” is from my latest book, THE AFTERLIVES OF TREES. My work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, read by Garrison Keillor on NPR, and featured in Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry.” I’m a former dancer and a yoga teacher, and I’ve finally figured out that I live at the intersection of poetry and poetry in motion. I am currently the Poet Laureate of Kansas.
How It Is
The sun drags worlds behind it
planets at its ankles
it hauls you out of bed
and into the kitchen where
spoon by spoon the sun
draws itself through your body
this goes on and on one foot
after another through the usual rooms
while stars are dropping off the map
the sun drags the pen across the page
and out the sides of your eyes
the sky spins your tears
into a poem that falls back
on graves of lovers
and gardens of strangers
the sun without fail
pulls the coat of loneliness over your arms
as you walk in your own footprints
until you reach the place
where we can read these words together
Credit: "How It Is" by Wyatt Townley, from The Afterlives of Trees, © Wyatt Townley (Woodley Press, 2011).
Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
The sun drags worlds behind it
planets at its ankles
it hauls you out of bed
and into the kitchen where
spoon by spoon the sun
draws itself through your body
this goes on and on one foot
after another through the usual rooms
while stars are dropping off the map
the sun drags the pen across the page
and out the sides of your eyes
the sky spins your tears
into a poem that falls back
on graves of lovers
and gardens of strangers
the sun without fail
pulls the coat of loneliness over your arms
as you walk in your own footprints
until you reach the place
where we can read these words together
Credit: "How It Is" by Wyatt Townley, from The Afterlives of Trees, © Wyatt Townley (Woodley Press, 2011).
Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
©2015 Wyatt Townley