Mudlark Poster No. 8 (1997)

Ruth Daigon

Polishing Silence | Threshold


Ruth Daigon is editor of Poets On:. She has won the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize (University of Southern California) 1997. She recieved "The Eve of St. Agnes Award" (Negative Capability) 1993, and she was runner-up in 1994. Her poems have been widely published: Shenandoah, Negative Capability, Poet & Critic, Kansas Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly, Greensboro Review, Sycamore Review, Atlanta Review, Connecticut Review, Calliope, Poet Lore, Zone 3, Tikkun.... She is featured, in Spanish and English, as El autor de la semana (11 al 17 de agosto de 1997) by Oscar Aguilera at the University Chile in Santiago. Her latest poetry collection is Between One Future And The Next  (Papier-Mache Press 1995). Gale Research has just published her autobiography in the Contemporary Authors Autobiography series. E-mail: ruthart@aol.com.

Ruth Daigon's new collection of poems THE MOON INSIDE (Gravity/Newton's Baby Press) is scheduled to appear on December 1, 1999. Pre-publication orders, $10.00 per book (discounted from $14.95), accepted at http://www.newtonsbaby.com/mooninside.html.

 

Polishing Silence

there is only this house
this room this field and a tree
pulling away from its roots

a trickle of water
like a thin strand of wire
drips from the tap

a fly perches on the rim
of a bowl wings lifting lowering
polishing the silence

light spreads its slow stain
around the empty coffee cup
and the quieter it is

the slower time passes
as i listen to my breath
the oldest sound i know

 

Threshold

I hold the oldest word I know
cupped in my hand
smooth as stone
warmed by the sun
I rub it gently but it
won't release its secret

Last night it kissed me
on the lips, kept me
company a while
as I fed it, held it
up to the light
before letting go

Today I move
from room to room
going nowhere

Fragment by fragment
I gather thin
membranes of sound
and whatever knocks
I say

Come in

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