Poetry by Jeff Gundy

Second Morning Song
from Oneonta

So early the black flies are still asleep.
A high scruff of rock where lovers

carved their names and then slipped back
into the soft needles under the trees.

Already the valley hums and crackles
and the last rolls of mist hang over

the smokestacks like those fine scratches
that pile up on your glasses. God said,

the places you love will often
be difficult to find. God said, sweat

is a good sign but not reliable.
God said, hold this day like an egg,

hold and cherish it as you dream
of being touched yourself. Break the day

but gently as the great chef breaks eggs
for the dishes you cannot name or afford.

God says all this has been given you,
the whine of the crane and whirr of engines

pulling tired women to their bad jobs
and the drumlin where the last glacier

gave up its journey and grumbled away.
God says remember, God says

don't give up. God says give up.


(Click here for an imitation of this poem by Anita Hooley.)


"Inquiry into Gifts, or the Indigo Bunting"

After hearing on the radio news
of the beautiful indigo bunting,
of its luminous blue-green splendor
that is visible only with the sun
on your back, I see one that very night
standing calmly on the lawn of a dream.
It knows full well how strange and rare
it is, knows it may live its days out
before anyone sees. As though
the world was made not to be noticed.
As though God had some job for us
besides seeing, as though eyes were given
for making the right turns and keeping
the rows straight. This is romantic,
isn't it? What can I say.
Some dumb gritty pressure,
habit or ideology, is warping me
toward a cautionary space where the birds
are all robins and grackles, beautiful
not even to each other, noisy
and jealous of their turf,
sure that if there is a God
he has done nothing for them lately.
I hear a strange bird call and
look toward the sun and see
a dark shadow, a figure that shakes
itself off to a further branch
before it even hears me looking,
to remind me that waht is given in dreams
should not be expected again.


(Click here for an interpretation of this poem by Ezra Schrock.)



All poems posted with permission from the author.
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