A Poem for a Thursday #150

Sophie Cabot Black is an American poet. She has won a number of prizes and has taught at Rutgers University and Columbia University. She divides her time between New York City and Connecticut. The Boston Review says of her writing, “Black’s taut, resonant lyrics are chastened of all unnecessary verbiage and reveal a poet of keen assurance and consummate craft, but perhaps what most amazes the reader is that such honed writing can speak with such emotional immediacy.”

As the leaves turn their backs on us
And the lilac give over to dusk, nothing
Is ever certain, not even the house, stubborn

In twilight as it outlasts the grove
It was wrestled from. Those left behind,
The oak and ancient elm, lean against each other

As if in consent. Out of dirt, out of
Some small mistake, comes the seedling;
It too has learned to watch, as we walk in and out

Of what wilderness was, and will again become,
As we enter our home, the way we enter love
Returning from elsewhere to call out
Each other's names, pulling the door closed behind us.

Our House 
Sophie Cabot Black

Brona has shared a poem this week.