Recedes into Failed Light
/Martina Reisz Newberry
RECEDES INTO FAILED LIGHT
Existential, illusory...
summer culminates in a kind of ecstasy.
The benevolent foison of earth and sky
is the gods’ finest percolation–
heated, sweated, concocted
from a sprinkling of consciousness,
a perpetuation of art and architecture’s
wicked cadences.
See how everything is a distraction?
See how focus is so difficult in
September’s strange light–
a light which says the entire fall
season is a gray paper lantern,
lit by a votive candle,
rising and rising, never warmed by
the small flame--only lifted,
only airborne
to end up above or in a silver green ocean
far away–only lifted then dropped
to be part of something
down below. Paper lantern, gray, cold,
only lifted, then dropped, never warmed,
on its own from the first day.
Author’s Note: Each fall I am saddened by the short days, the lack of brilliant sun which summer offers so generously. The colder weather seems mean and feels as if it erodes me.
Martina Reisz Newberry’s newest collection, BLUES FOR FRENCH ROAST WITH CHICORY is due for publication from Deerbrook Editions in 2019. Martina Reisz Newberry’s most recent books are TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME (Unsolicited Press, September 2017 ), NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE, (May 2017, Deerbrook Editions). She is also the author of WHERE IT GOES (Deerbrook Editions). LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions) and RUNNING LIKE A WOMAN WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE: Collected Poems (Red Hen Press). She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo Colony for the Arts, Djerassi Colony for the Arts, and at Anderson Center for Disciplinary Arts. Passionate about her city of Los Angeles, Newberry currently lives there with her husband, Brian Newberry, a Media Creative.
