Nathaniel Perry
Yesterday I spent all day
collecting rocks from one
scraped stretch of our driveway to spread
along another. The sun

watched me the whole time. At first
it was just me moving
the tractor every ten minutes to dump
rocks in the loader, proving

nothing more, you could say, than that
a man can move a lot
of rocks if you give him enough time.
Worse lessons have been bought

by more than sore hands, if you follow.
Though to say I was on my own
might be stretching things a bit.
The tractor is on loan

from a friend, who himself came to help
later, bringing his girls
who ran with my kids collecting stones
behind the tractor, hurling

them into the three buckets we set
on the box blade like Skee-Ball
targets. The kids even got to steer
the tractor some. When all

the buckets were full, we laid the rock
in the muddy swale where the rain
has been trying for years to take the road.
And the sun approved, long stains

of its afternoon light by then stretched thin
on everything around us.
I kept thinking, as we worked,
of Frost's bitter chorus

of walls and neighbors and "old-stone" fools
bent to what they knew.
Though we were making a road, at least,
a clearer passage through

the hidden fields and darker woods.
But still that primal thing
is there. When you've been given sweat
and rocks and care to sing

about, you sing the song you know.
Like this: I'm not alone.
May the curious prayer of work keep me
in contact with the stone

and who knows what else. Something big,
or bigger for sure than me,
which is good, and I don't even need
to know what it might be.
from the journal IMAGE 
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
This poem (and the others in the series it comes from) is not only an effort at making hymn meter more flexible, but also one of my many attempts to remind myself that, in ways, we are somehow at the same time always alone and never alone. Work reminds me of that; friends remind me of that. Poetry and family too.
 
"The Believer was a Victim of Mismanagement and Neglect"

"Callous mismanagement and a lack of care overshadowed the good work being done at the magazine. Frankly, what BMI hopes to achieve without The Believer as its crowning glory is beyond me. Despite the turmoil, abuse, and rampant neglect they face, its employees turned out one of the most unique and striking magazines around, a place that felt refreshingly disconnected from Twitter discourse and focused on broader stories."

via GAWKER
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Support Poetry Daily

Searching for a simple way to show your support? Purchase your books from our virtual bookstore on Bookshop. Or just follow the Buy This Book link below each poem on our web site.
What Sparks Poetry:
Alyse Knorr On John Keats' "Bright Star"

"I loved picturing the star in the poem watching the waves clean the shores and the snow graze the mountaintops. I loved how the first half of the poem painted a picture by negation, like a puzzle, and how it wrenched me from the cold, lonely reaches of outer space down to the grounded, intimate moment of laying one's head on a lover's breast and hearing the quiet of her breathing: all made equally sacred in the poem's grand equation."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. 
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2021 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency