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Column 877

Runoff

01.10.2022

It is hard to tell whether in ten years read­ers will know what a drop down menu” is, but that is the beau­ty and risk of poet­ry — to find poet­ry in the present ver­nac­u­lar, and to hope its accu­ra­cy and beau­ty jus­ti­fy its use. Sid­ney Bur­ris, in his poem, Runoff”, is in hope too. The promise of spring for him, is a metaphor for one of many func­tions of the imag­i­na­tion. In this instance it is the capac­i­ty to believe in a bet­ter future by see­ing it before it comes. I imag­ine that read­ers will get that part, long into the future.

Runoff

January’s drop-down menu
leaves everything to the imagination:
splotch the ice, splice the light,
remake the spirit…

Just get on with it,
doing what you have to do
with the gray palette that lies
to hand. The sun’s coming soon.

A future, then, of warmth and runoff,
and old faces surprised to see us.
A cache of love, I’d call it,
opened up, vernal, refreshed.

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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. Poem copyright ©2021 by Sidney Burris, “Runoff” from What Light He Saw I Cannot Say, (LSU Press, 2021). Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.