A Roadside Epiphany

Not pausing as, in early evening,
I pass a stand of spring-white cherry trees,
I set it spinning anyway, a whirligig—

a thing, a dizzy space—inside-outside
my head: such galaxies, sea-runs of old light
seen faster close,

some distant eddies slowing, some
almost stopped, in a parallax enchantment
of grace-filled dance.

And having passed, I say of each
gray branch—gray presence while it lasts
dissolving into night—let it be shadow

of the brightness it holds, let it be
what first I understood: bone of the world
in cold bloom. It is good.

Don Russ

Don Russ is author of Dream Driving (Kennesaw State University Press, 2007) and the chapbooks Adam’s Nap (Billy Goat Press, 2005) and World’s One Heart (The Next Review, 2015). His poem “Girl with Gerbil” was chosen for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2012 after it appeared in The Cincinnati Review.

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House of Gold

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Jacob’s Ladder