One Light to Another
The storm
turns off
the lights.
The lightning
lights the whereabouts
of the flashlight.
The flashlight
takes us to matches
and candles, the oil lamp.
Now we’re back,
revisiting
the 19th century.
turns off
the lights.
The lightning
lights the whereabouts
of the flashlight.
The flashlight
takes us to matches
and candles, the oil lamp.
Now we’re back,
revisiting
the 19th century.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Jonathan Greene, from his most recent book of poems, Seeking Light: New & Selected Later Poems, Broadstone Books, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Jonathan Greene and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.