Newsletter sign up

Be the first to know when new American Life in Poetry columns are live.

Column 078

Moss

Intro by Ted Kooser
09.27.2006

Moth­ers and fathers grow accus­tomed to being asked by young chil­dren, What’s that?” Thus par­ents relearn the world by hav­ing to explain things they haven’t thought about in years. In this poem the Illi­nois poet Bruce Guernsey looks close­ly at com­mon, every­day moss and tries to explain its nature for us. I admire the way the poem deep­ens as the moss moves from being a slip­cov­er to wet dust on a gravestone. 

Moss

How must it be
to be moss,
that slipcover of rocks?—
imagine,

greening in the dark,
longing for north,
the silence
of birds gone south.

How does moss do it,
all day
in a dank place
and never a cough?—

a wet dust
where light fails,
where the chisel
cut the name.

Share this column

Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

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. Reprinted from Peripheral Vision, published by Small Poetry Press, Pleasant Hill, CA. Copyright © 1997 by Bruce Guernsey and reprinted by permission of the author, whose latest book is “The Lost Brigade,” Water Press and Media, 2005. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.