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Names |
by L. Ward Abel
Something called my name
in the grove this morning
out past the statuary
and pink marble bench.
I could recite the names of
birds there, the trees they
fling and bounce through,
the blooms saved for later.
But it was my own name I heard
in the voice of my mother
when she was young. I had
a crew cut, a small red coat.
And sometimes I hear singing, too,
not just birds but chants,
monks who've gathered
then dispersed into my wild pasture
where there are souls to save
in little shadows, saplings,
newborns, young love
and colors, dew,
morning and syllables of
a word that equals all of us,
all things, teeming, the voice
we answer to.
Poet, composer of music (Max Able / Abel, Rawls & Hayes), lawyer and spoken-word performer (Scapeweavel), L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has been published at The Reader (UK), The Yale Anglers' Journal, Versal, The Pedestal, Texas Poetry Journal, Kritya, OpenWide, and many others. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006), and the newly released The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008).
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