Illyria, by Barbara Guest

And I was right as dawn over head

listening to the buoy as is often done

a bridge while brows float under it yes

it was a way of steeples of construction

of piling of verbs. I too admire the way

water spells in the hand riding this way and

that and also the moments of green which

like paragraphs point out the stations

we must enter and leaving them count trees

more scarcely; there is much to emulate

not only iron bands but those waves you can

no longer dive into and the seamless rifts

which are noble as you explain omnivorously

having devoured both nail and hammer,

like an isle composed of rhythm and whiteness.

Night is gentle with the promise

of a balanced pear such is it this drop.

From “Selected Poems” by Barbara Guest. (Sun & Moon Press: $22.95; 197 pp.) 1995 Reprinted by permission.