Three Villanelles

Jared Carter — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:01:28 +0000

Night-Blooming Cereus

Rise up in darkness. Soon you will be gone,
And morning’s light is harsh. Your dower,
Your single night of burning, still lives on.

Above us now the moon has kept—drawn
By your beauty—watch through the midnight hour.
Rise up in darkness; soon you will be gone.

However frail your light, your fragile song
Of innocence, however brief your flower,
Your single night of burning still lives on.

You are pure transiency. While rook and pawn
Move in relentless ways, and moth devours,
Rise up in darkness: soon you will be gone.

Fixed by your perishable flame, the throng
Of shadows cast about us has no power:
Your single night of burning still lives on.

The place we are is now, and not beyond—
In blossoming, and not the petals’ shower.
Rise up in darkness; soon you will be gone.
Your single night of burning still lives on.

First published in The Formalist

Prophecy

They shall return, and by that cold light keep
To the woods’ edge, and the untrammeled vale;
The horse and gryphon shall together sleep,

Fixed in each other’s dreams, and in that deep
Transfusion, frame their forgotten tale.
They shall return, and by that cold light keep

The snow in trodden circles, while they leap
And shudder; reason shall be of no avail.
The horse and gryphon shall together sleep,

It matters not how long. The time to reap
Comes round at last: hammer discovers nail.
They shall return, and by that cold light keep

Strange counsel. Stranger still, on that steep
Mountainside, when all the leaves turn pale,
The horse and gryphon shall together sleep

Beside their hoard of ancient words, and weep,
And gaze out through the rain’s dark veil.
They shall return, and by that cold light keep;
The horse and gryphon shall together sleep.

First published in Iambs & Trochees

Flambeau

There, where the pool of mortal light begins
To gather, where the rivulet breaks free
To make a fire, a flame blows in the wind.

This is no easy rising—odds and ends
Of nothingness to stir, darkness to seize
There where the pool of mortal light begins.

Many have doubted, many refused to bend
To such simplicity, down on their knees
To make a fire. A flame blows in the wind

And casts for purchase in the night. To fend
Away the cold—time’s unremitting freeze—
There where the pool of mortal light begins

A solitary spark will do, to send
Illumination through the fallen trees.
To make a fire, a flame blows in the wind,

And neither rain nor drifted snow can mend
The broken branch. Yet more than shadows weave,
There where the pool of mortal light begins
To make a fire. A flame blows in the wind.

First published in The Formalist

Five Poems

Jared Carter — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:10 +0000

Say You Remember

Say you remember—even if all that stays
   Is no more lasting than the silver foil
   Of quarter moon, or the west wind’s toil
Upon the deep, among the darkening waves.
   Say you remember.

Say you remember—candle that burned so bright,
   Casting our shapes against the winding stair;
   Casement thrown open, letting a rush of air
Prolong the surge from far within the night.
   Say you remember.

Say you remember—morning, with gulls crying,
   The yellow sand swept clean, and not a sign
   That we came that way. No trace left behind
By the incoming waves. And the wind sighing.
   Say you remember.

First published in The New Formalist (2006)

Gravestone

What can no longer be
reaches out to me,

accepts my silence, knows
kinship with the snows

lately gathered here,
only to disappear—

ciphers written where,
intractable as air,

a touch still leaves a trace
of something unerased.

First published in Lucid Rhythms (2007)

Not in Dreams

Not in dreams will I find you,
where streams run dry,
Not the face etched in stone,
the broken sky.

Not again will you step toward me
with shattered grace,
Not anything, in that bright moment,
that takes up space.

Out of this universe, then,
and into another
Where drastic opposites
still come together.

Autumnal

No motion has she now, no force
—Wordsworth

Is it your breath, that once warmed me?
No, merely a thought that disarms me.
Have you come at last, up from the river?
I came by a path that seemed lost forever.

I knew by your step, your way of kneeling—
You sense not at all, you have no feeling.
And your hand, that brushes away the leaves—
No more than a gathering wind in the trees.

But still your touch finds purchase within me—
Whatever your dream, that gesture is empty.
Those moments forsworn, that ecstasy brief?
I am but a stranger now, even to grief.

With sorrow outlasted, what draws you so near?
Words that give witness though no one can hear.
What do they mean? Does nothing remain?
Only the sound of the wind and the rain.

First published in Umbrella (2007)

Visitant

What is that calling on the wind
that never seems a moment still?
That moves in darkness like a hand
of many fingers taken chill?

What is it seeking when it flows
about my head, and seems to wrest
All motion from my heart, as though
I still had something to confess?

How can it be it knows my crime,
this troubled whistling in the air?
‘Tis true, I left her long behind,
but this is dark, and she was fair.