The Spirit of William Speaking to the Spirit of His Wife
by Susan Yuzna

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy Pale Bird, Spouting Fire at Amazon.com
Buy
Pale Bird, Spouting Fire
at Amazon.com

The wild deer wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care.

—William Blake

 

What I like about his town, Catherine,
are the deer which appear
so suddenly out of nowhere, like a vision:

Strolling down the alley of Beverly,
supper time, or trotting fast
past Hilda as I open the door to call my dog—Lola,

loyal as you were to me, Catherine,
rising to sit at my side, those long nights
of frenzy, as I entered the vortex,

distrubed by my wild
illuminations.  Now I am finally
calmed down, dear, and here I linger,

at the door of this poor creature, hoping
to prolong the tableau, for her
sake—there, do you hear?

The sound of sweet hooves—do not
pity me—there, beyond the tamaracks—
departing departing departing.

 

SUSAN YUZNA'S second book of poems, Pale Bird, Spouting Fire, is published by The University of Akron Press 2000.  Yuzna, a native of Minnesota, teaches writing at the University of North Dakota.  Her first book, Her Slender Dress, won the Akron Poetry Prize and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America.  She has held a Bush Artist Fellowship and the Richard Hugo Memorial Poetry Scholarship, and has been a resident at several artist colonies, including Yaddo and MacDowell.

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