There's an hour of words that come when no one's listening
~ after a line by Marina Tsvetaev
by Reginald Gibbons
Pond frogs silent at noon. Cardinals,
robins, announcing themselves.
Under sturdy ceilings of schoolrooms
even a few words can calm small
children as they lie sleepless on their mats.
It might be near a hill that
After future millennia will have
been leveled, it may be under
crags of rough stone-stiff
cordilleras leaning to listen
to the prophecies of smoke,
or where storm winds finally
are slacking near the ocean shore,
that the unheard words of earthly
truth are spoken. When snow
clouds for a few minutes lift
their hems above white peaks
there will be words in the languages
of water and air that all
who could listen are not
keen enough to listen for.
Am I listening, at last, now?
Reginald Gibbons has published eleven books of poems, including CREATURES OF A DAY (LSU Press), which was a Finalist for the National Book Award, and most recently, RENDITIONS (Four Way Books, 2021). He has published a book of (very short fiction & cnf) prose, AN ORCHARD IN THE STREET (BOA Editions, 2017), and also a book about poetry, language, and intuition, HOW POEMS THINK (Univ. of Chicago, 2015). In 2023 a new paperback edition of his novel SWEETBITTER (which won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award) will be published (JackLeg Press). He teaches at Northwestern University.