#anniefinch

Earth Goddess and Sky God

You haven't formed me.  I'm a monster still.

Then give me your body.  Give it to me in rain.

Look up and fill me.  I am too dark to stain.

You haven't  held me. I hold apart my will

Spread dryness through me.  I have a night to fill

in high heat-speckled waves, apart from where

I will come down.  I have nothing to share

with breath.  I will give it back.  There is one to kill,

one to renew, and one to persuade to weep.

My night holds everything except for sleep.

A BLESSING ON THE POETS

Patient earth-digger, impatient fire-maker,

Hungry word-taker and roving sound-lover,

Sharer and saver, muser and acher,

You who are open to hide or uncover,

Time-keeper and –hater, wake-sleeper, sleep-waker;

May language’s language, the silence that lies

Under each word, move you over and over,

Turning you, wondering, back to surprise.

HOMEBIRTH

Home is a birthplace since you came to me,

pouring yourself down through me like a soul,

calling the cosmos imperiously

into me so it could reach to unroll

out from the womb where the wild rushes start

in a quick, steady heartbeat not from my own heart.

This is my body, which you made to break,

which gave you to make you, till you bear its mark,

which held you till you found your body to take,

(open at home on my bed in the dark).

photos by: Meredith Kennedy

*** The poems are published in Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan UP, 2013)  

Annie Finch is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in anthologies including The Norton Anthology of World Poetry and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. She has also published twelve books on poetic form and craft, most recently A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2012) and Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters (Everymans Library, 2015).  She is the founder and director of poetcraftcircles.com and hopes Mactaggart fans will come check it out.