Harvest Seam


It was November.  I was not alone.
Send me your green, an endless pouring name
called from the skies that still had hands, that came
handed from clouds through tunnels.  Any seam
was open, but the ear was mine, the crest
that climbed along the season till, the gleam
that slits November answering, I heard,
with scattered lips, in every pore, "Harvest."


It shattered, "harvest.  Don't come in;
reaping on land comes on, nothing comes in.
Stay out and harden fall and death and kin."
Still, like a midnight, I was not appalled.
I took the hands, and harvested, and fall,
a harvest, kept its nothing from my fall.

Annie Finch is author of the poetry collections Among the Goddesses, Calendars, The Encyclopedia of Scotland, and Eve, as well as several books of poetry translation and criticism. Her creative collaborations merging poetry with music, visual art, and theater include two opera librettos and the new performance ritual, Wolf Song. Winner of the 2009 Robert Fitzgerald Award, she has performed her poetry across the U.S. and in Europe. She is Director of Stonecoast, the low-residency MFA program in creative writing of the University of Southern Maine.

Franz WrightMegan KaminskiMatina StamatakisRustin LarsonJenna CardinaleAdam FieledPaul SiegellPenn KempMitch CorberJuliet CookAmanda DeutchKathrin SchaeppiJennifer Styperk


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