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Augury

By Ellen WehlePosted Wednesday, July 23, 2003, at 12:11 PM ET

Listen to Ellen Wehle reading this poem.


Laugh if you want, when the fortune teller
told me to "take a new road" I took
her at her word, turned
a block from home and found it
waiting: gabled night, the secret trees
spilling darkness around streetlights, blown roses
singing hosannas over a fence.

Don't get me wrong, nothing was solved.

I walked, a cat cried at my passing,
grave old oaks
watched. I knew myself
not. Say, How can we help it—this waterwheel
of our days, each day a bucket
bound in copper rings and dripping, each
bucket a hand, cupping sky? Who knows what

I knew. Moon open as a gate.

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The recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Ellen Wehle is spending her spring writing. She lives in Salem, Mass.
Click here to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.


To submit poetry to Slate, send up to five poems and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Robert Pinsky, Slate Magazine, Boston University, 236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215.
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