Welcome, and more Blas Falconer

Hello to everyone who knew me at the old POL blog, and to any new friends who happen to wander in. This blog will be eclectic, and probably a bit ragged until I get used to the way things work at Blogger, so please join me in keeping an open mind and low expectations.



I wrote about Blas Falconer in one of my final posts on the old blog, and I'm afraid I decamped a little too quickly for him to get the attention he deserves, so I wanted to mention him again here. Blas's emotional, imagistic poetry has haunted me ever since I read his collection A Question of Gravity and Light, which I reviewed for the Nashville Scene recently.

Blas gave me permission to post a poem in its entirety, and since the post with the gut-puncher ("The Vanishing Point") from the other blog has been consigned to the dustbin of cyberspace, here's another, very different poem. Somehow it feels appropriate to my sudden change of locale.


Elsewhere

The storm lit the room with a blue, flourescent flash.
Even the dog stared into the darkness for some time
after, wide-eyed. In the morning, mist sprays the car
on the way to work, as tobacco barns pour sweet smoke

over the street, the pond where cows circle, and
you wonder if what could have been
was ever waiting for you
somewhere. You rest your head against the glass.

The deer dragged from the edge of the road isn't waiting
for anyone, though you look for it each day you pass.
You'd like to walk into the damp field where its legs
rise stiffly through the tall grass, the color of tall grass.