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Luci Shaw
Desperate to leave words behind (rubbing me raw
from every inside surface--my deeply-papered desk,
the spines of the books on the shelves, the magazines
exploding with syllables, the verbal assault of the cereal box
on the counter, even the Jonathan apples’ stuck-on labels)
I open my window over the ravine. Falling rain with
its splash and hush. A deep breath. The intake--a lovely
wet, fungal smell. A squirrel’s sharp decrescendo
of chirrup. All good, but not enough.
When the front door swung wide the world
pulled me out, a cork from a bottle, to where
the only words came when wind emptied its bowlful
of power in my face. The clouds spoke a drench of rain.
A wide bib of creek water over rocks intoned its own
original poem. Later the sun came out, articulating
its meaning on a pool. It all began to become
enough, even the bird, in its purse of a nest, brooding,
not singing, even silence its own pure language.
Yet how, without this raw spate of words,
can I tell you how it felt?
Luci Shaw is the author of nine volumes of poetry including What the Light Was Like (WordFarm, 2006), Accompanied by Angels (Eerdmans, 2006), The Genesis of It All (Paraclete, 2006), and the nonfiction prose book The Crime of Living Cautiously (IVP, 2005). She is Writer in Residence at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. Widely anthologized, her poetry has appeared in Weavings, Image, Books & Culture, The Christian Century, Rock & Sling, Radix, Crux, Stonework, Nimble Spirit and others.
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