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Two Poems

"Raptor" and "Ruin"

Published onDec 09, 2024
Two Poems
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Raptor 


In lunar sheen
that is less a pearl
moon than the owl's
skull on the sill,
I consider my own
hungers, the mind 
curved like a beak, 
every notion torn
like a cornered
siskin or rabbit.
Instead of thought,
I want the soft 
touch of owl down,
eyesilver so keen
no strong jaw or 
talon is needed, wings
more quiet than
moonlight and a song
so sweet whatever 
trembles in tall 
grass will accept
its fate with no
howling. As wind
stirs hyssop and
yarrow, I want 
surrender, no more
gnawing, a spell 
to render me hollow. 
I have been 
too long ruminant,
too long nocturnal 
and alone.

Volume 18, no. 2, 1990.


Ruin

A derelict cottage on the marsh
amid red grass and sandspurs,
swamp haw and lilies. 
You can get there by jonboat 
or a disused road through the cedars, 
and you might survey the dunes
 or study the broken-backed barn,
watch dwarf deer at the salt lick
or search for antiques 
in debris.  Maybe you'd see
on the beach a farm dog gnawing
a stag's shed antler.  Parasites
waste the lemon tree,
its bark and pallid leaves,
and the smallest events of light
across the sound's
wind-distressed waters
invoke the minor episodes
of one remote and simple life.  Inside,
the ceiling damp with honey
sags, and you wonder when cracked plaster
will give way and the hive
spill drones onto the kitchen floor.
From the window you can see
if the moon comes up, once more
thin gray over the waves.  You can sift
through the midden, imagine
a life reduced to relics— 
potsherds, grave toys, stones.

Volume 15, no. 1, 1987

R. T. Smith founded Cold Mountain Review, then edited Southern Humanities Review. In June of 2018 he retired from Washington and Lee as writer-in-residence and after 23 years of editing Shenandoah. His most recent book is Doves in Flight (stories), and a collection of poems, Summoning Shades, released in 2019. 
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