by Stephanie Burt
on Nathan’s birthday Were the vertical layers made Advancing or retreating Why can’t you see The glacier itself in the mist Are we entering Asgard or Alfheim Or Vanaheim where the friendlier deities Of cultivating vegetables hang out One soaked-through child loves the sea The other wants to draw so many Pictures of it All of my paper gets wet Spate or spatter of droplets forever No one is judged Below the rainbow bridge Under the roar the high amplitude the nonhuman No one could sail This feedback this fiord Moss and silver beech and assorted shrubs Will flourish on the surface of the rock Able to drink salt spray He said He loved it He also said I didn’t know It would be extremely rainy I didn’t know The mountains would be covered in tears
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Among her recent books are After Callimachus (Princeton UP, 2020) and Don’t Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems (Basic, 2019). A new chapbook of poems about superheroes will appear from Rain Taxi Editions this year, and a new full-length from Graywolf in 2022.
