"Silverchest"

"Silverchest"

"Silverchest"

Arts has moved! You can find new stories here.
A weekly poem, read by the author.
Dec. 28 2010 6:56 AM

"Silverchest"

Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Carl Phillips read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.
.

Unafraid is what we were, I think, and then afraid,
though it mostly seemed otherwise.  I opened my eyes,
I saw, I closed, I shut them.
................................................The usual morning glories
twist up through banks of gone-wild-by-now holly;
crickets for song, morphos for their glamour, which
is quiet—blue, and quiet …

You: the dark that nothing, not even the light, displaces.
You, who have been the single leaf that
won't stop tossing,
among the others. 
For you.

Advertisement

.

Carl Phillips is the author of 11 books of poetry, including Double Shadow, forthcoming this spring. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.