Day Unto Day

Poems

Martha Collins

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781571318480
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

The William Carlos Williams Award–winning poet shares a new collection of "musically brilliant, psychologically intricate" meditations on time (Kevin Prufer). This hauntingly spare and subtle poetry collection consists of six sequences: during one month each year, for six years, Martha Collins wrote a short poem each day. With perfectly distilled lines, she captures the aching, liminal beauty of one day becoming another—the slow burn of time passing, the ambiguity of an "old / new leaf" turning over, even as she collages a wide range of material that includes often disturbing news of the world. Writing in the tradition of poetic meditation, Collins shows us the full degree of her mastery—a mature voice, poems with tremendous scope, and lines exceptionally controlled. Here is the work of a seasoned poet at the height of her career.

MOVING STILL

MOVING STILL

July 2007

1

Sun day summer day Sun-

day news & views more civilians

killed than soldiers Afghans around

their shoulders handsome dogs in these

our own United States so named on this

summer day our dogs bark but maybe some

day the sun the day the Lord hath made

2

Made in the day-old USA,

by the Laws of Nature and Nature’s

God

and then this morning the yolk

of the sun: full, I said, as if I spoke

of the moon,

as if my country, our

country, wrote all, wrote equal—

Life, Liberty and the pursuit

3

pursuit of happiness guaranteed

by much of the paper, ads for more

designer purses perfume shoes

for some of the people, those

who can, for us this summer

ocean bed view love our

summer’s not for all

4

all are created equal endowed by Creator

while they were finishing midday prayers

bombs bursting in fireworks bombs

charred bodies had no faces

bright stars the rockets red

could not protect

our Lives our sacred Honor

5

Honor the sun that sheds the light

that falls upon us, honor the clouds

that gather and make the rain

that falls upon us, honor the earth

that holds and keeps us, honor

That Which made us, gave us

honor, the sun, the hurting earth.

6

Earth: mantled mother big

blue marble pale blue dot not

blue until we got out there we

thought talked green forgot

the water now we let green

go cut it burn it turn it into

stuff, junk, shall her bones live?

7

Live from our own

dawn air, featuring song

sparrow, cardinal, mourning

dove, alive and well

in our bed my love, his slow

sleeping breathing, low continuo

entered into this summer score

8

Score one for sea, one for sky, blue

meets blue, line, tie,

one for sand,

now exposed, turning tide,

leaving sand,

birds for all, least

terns hover, dart, piping

plovers scurry,

can we all agree

with these on earth sea sky?

9

Sky items: Yesterday I disturbed

the nesting terns, they charged

like planes,

in May the osprey flew

a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• OVER TIME
• COMING THROUGH
• UNDER GREEN
• MOVING STILL
• AFTER WORK
• GRAYED IN
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author