Poem-A-Day: Arthur Sze, Morning Antlers

	July 31, 2012 Today's poem is copyright © 2012 by Arthur Sze. Used with permission of the author. More from this author Other Sze Poems At the Equinox Comet Hyakutake Looking Back on the Muckleshoot Reservation from Galisteo Street, Santa Fe Slanting Light Spring Snow You can unsubscribe from our Poem-A-Day emails at at anytime—either completely, or until next April. Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane Suite 901 New York, NY 10038 212-274-0343 academy@poets.org		Morning Antlers by Arthur Sze Redwinged blackbirds in the cattail pond— today I kicked and flipped a wing in the sand and saw it was a sheared off flicker's. Yesterday's rain has left snow on Tesuque Peak, and the river will widen then dwindle. We step into a house and notice antlers mounted on the wall behind us; a ten-day-old child looks, nurses, and sleeps; his mother smiles but says she cries then cries as emptiness brims up and over. And as actions are rooted in feelings, I see how picking spinach in a field blossoms the picker, how a thoughtless act shears a wing. As we walk out to the car, the daylight is brighter than we knew. We do not believe flames shoot out of a cauldron of days but, looking at the horizon, see flames leap and crown from tree to tree. Share Digg StumbleUpon Facebook E-mail to Friend