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Column 888

Quicker

03.28.2022

Here in the mid-west, on the cusps of spring, on days when I won­der when win­ter will tru­ly end, I wel­come this deft­ly shaped reminder by David Bak­er of the sea­son that has just passed. He dra­ma­tizes beau­ti­ful­ly the com­ing of win­ter and the way it takes hold of us. Baker’s title​“Quick­er” sug­gests move­ment and not sta­sis, some­thing hope­ful, even, in the promise that comes with the chang­ing seasons.

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Quicker

By David Baker
   the season quicker now
the darkening—

no longer the leaves
fluttering down

but the whole shadowed earth
reaching up, taking hold

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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 ©2022 by David Baker, “Quicker” from The Southern Review, 58:1, Winter 2022 Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

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