Art: Untitled by John Gregory BrownAugury for Spring
it’s december, and the leaves
push through the branches, insistent,
verdant. in a dream, I mistake you
for your cousin, but somehow softer—
softer is the wrong word, gentle maybe
or kind. or maybe true?
my hands are stained with this,
the question that folds over itself
like clay petals: my daughter
she is fierce, a kestrel, sage
sure as smoke can cleanse,
I feel more myself on the exhale
can lay empty and need, want only
nothing. can I trust this fullness—
I understand the pull
of stillness, but you
this other, extra—it is so
temporary. I will be myself
in hollow bone. I will shudder
on the linoleum and weep
empty, I am myself.
voices, footfalls, someone explaining
this leaf scenting my hands.
there are stars that yield
to the mountainface, faces
that yield to my memory.
you find me then, little fire-fish
and fill me. and delight.
About the author:
Sherre Vernon is an educator, a poet and a believer in the mystical power of words. Sherre has written two award-winning chapbooks: Green Ink Wings, her postmodern novella and The Name is Perilous, a 2008 poetry chapbook. Sherre's work is heartbreaking, richly layered, lyrical and intelligent. She strives for linguistic efficiency by stepping outside of familiar phrases into a dynamic, shimmering grammar.
Art: Untitled by John Gregory Brown
In the artist's words:
Born and raised in New Orleans, John Gregory Brown is the author of the novels Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery; The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur; Audubon’s Watch; and A Thousand Miles from Nowhere. His honors include a Lyndhurst Prize, the Lillian Smith Award, the John Steinbeck Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year Award, and the Library of Virginia Book Award. His visual art has been displayed in individual and group exhibitions and has appeared online and in print in Hayden’s Ferry Review, the New England Review, Flock, The Brooklyn Review, Gulf Stream, and elsewhere.He is the Julia Jackson Nichols Professor of English at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where he lives with his wife, the novelist Carrie Brown.
