There by Don Colburn

By T.

3 February 2012

3.77k

There
Don Colburn

Water, bone, bed, bedrock –
whatever is underneath, below what’s below.
Sudden touchable quiet, shadow
of a shadow. Weather. Sadness turning
ordinary. Nameless illness coming on.
A knock at the door so gentle
it could be anything. Distance.
The just thing not said, or said too late
or said exactly and without mercy.
Wind rising. Whatever might rise.

MARGINALIA

I have no one to explain my grief. I have the moon, but it mirrors the changing shadows on my face.

ABOUT DON COLBURN

Don Colburn grew up near Boston and lives in Washington, D.C., where he is a reporter for The Washington Post. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and, twenty-three years later, his M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College. He has worked as a journalist for two decades, and was a runner-up for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He began writing poems nine years ago while at Stanford University on a Knight Fellowship for journalists, and regards poetry and journalism as two ways… (more)