[Stylist] a poem

[Ann Chiappetta]

The Need Is So Great

Jim Moore - 1943-

 

Sometimes I just sit like this at the window and watch

the darkness come. If I'm smart, I'll put on Bach.

 

I'm thinking now of how far it always seems there is to go.

Maybe it is too easy that I speak so often

 

of late last light on a December day,

of that stubborn grass that somehow still remains green

 

behind the broken chain link fence on the corner.

But the need is so great for the way light looks

 

as it takes its leave of us. We say

what we can to each other of these things,

 

we who are such thieves, stealing first

one breath and then the next. Bach, keep going

 

just this slowly, show me the way to believe

that what matters in this world has already happened

 

and will go on happening forever.

The way light falls on the last

 

of the stricken leaves of the copper beech

at the end of the block is something to behold.

 

Copyright C 2022 by Jim Moore. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on
December 30, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

 

Jim Moore

Jim Moore was born on June 22, 1943, in Decatur, Illinois. He began writing
in the mid-1960s and received his bachelor's degree at the University of
Minnesota and his master's degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His
poetry collections include Prognosis (Graywolf Press, 2021), Underground:
New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2014), Invisible Strings (Graywolf
Press, 2011), and Lightning at Dinner (Graywolf Press, 2005).

 

 

Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.

Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media 

914.393.6605 USA

Anniecms64 at gmail.com <mailto:Anniecms64 at gmail.com> 

All things Annie: www.annchiappetta.com <http://www.annchiappetta.com>  

 

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