Crow

By Jamie Parsley

PRAISE FOR JAMIE PARSLEY’S POETRY
________________________________________
“Jamie Parsley’s poems are so evocative, so lonely, so understated, that I admire them very much. One of his best talents is avoiding wordiness—a mistake so common to many poets, in my opinion. The reader feels very comfortable fitting himself into the silences of Jamie’s poems.”
—Jon Hassler, author of North of Hope and Staggerford

“The feeling [in Jamie Parsley's poems] is warm and open and good. . .a good feeling all around. Given his years—notable.”
—Cid Corman, editor of Origin magazine and author of And the Word

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamie Parsley
• Release date: Jan 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310783142

Jamie Parsley

Jamie Parsley is an accomplished and award-winning poet and Episcopal priest He is the author of twelve books of poems, one book of short fiction and, since 2004, has been an Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota.

Book preview

ONE

At the edge of the darkness

"on the margin

of eternity"

—R.S. Thomas

Hawk Ridge

It was a gasp—

a winter breath—

we heard first.

A steady mantra

came from

someplace

beyond us and yet

around us all at once.

Then the shadow came,

cold and black—

a strong body and a caress

of air moving against

the fog, against

the persistent restlessness

that came up from a place

below us. The shadow went on

beyond us who squinted

into the gray slate of the day,

measuring it as it rose,

circled,

fell,

then rose again—

perfect and precise over

the churning dark waters.

Stony Point

The wind moves not

toward here but away,

up the shore from this

gathering of boulders

and this one lone pine,

its skeletal roots exposed

to the upward grasp

of the water.

I will leave here

one day never to return.

I will get up from this place

I called my own and never

again and make my way back,

not leaving any trace of myself behind—

not one thing that stone-

cold tides and persistent

winters can’t dispose of.

Even then, it will be good

to go from here

and to be truly gone—

to not leave anything

that can be traced or

examined or exposed

like this day was

once the sun unveils itself.

It will be enough to be

as the wind is in this place,

an exhausting presence

that completely fills the air

and then is gone.

It will be good to be

as the clouds I remember

hanging above me that first day

I came here. They have been

replaced by ghostly shadows

I find familiar

and yet strangely distant

in a familial sort of way.

The wind moves not

toward here but away,

up the shore toward that place

I have been headed toward

all my life.

This

The gray mist moves

silently against a seemingly

unlimited stretch of

almost indistinguishable

water. The slightest

breeze—steady

as a heartbeat—

nudges the fog

forward. As it does

I gasp—

my breath fogging

the window pane

with ghostly

zeroes. I lean

close and try

to listen

to what

it says.

Is it a whisper—

a gasp of exhaustion

panted into the soft

flesh of the earth—

made even more

tender by dew and

the remnants of

last night’s drizzle?

As much as I fight it,

I force myself

to turn—to close

the curtains and

to turn from

the window

into the white-

walled room that

surrounds me,

welcoming me and

making me feel

as though

I am

who I am

just once

more again.

Marin

He has become

deformed. He knows

it even without

a reflection

or a shadow

at his feet to

gauge himself. The wind,

he knows, has

formed him into

something shapeless—

something boneless

and pliable.

Walking in

the dark above

the cliffs,

the wind and

the water working

at his flesh, he hears

over the howl

of ocean

louder howls—

drunken and

wordless. At the edge

of the darkness, there

is a circle of pale

light. A sturdy

black shadow—

peakéd and angular.

A house, with its walls

low against the earth.

And as he draws

closer, he sees

a circle of cars about

it, the aluminum

in their headlights

reflecting the light

falling