For National Poetry Month, the Burchfield Penney will share poems from Mortals & Immortals: Burchfield Penney Writers and Poets Series 35 Year Celebration.
for my husband, Robert Edwards
Along the river by the English gardens,
the dark, striated bark of willow trees
spirals their twisted branches, doubled boles,
till they appear like flows of lava, dense
against the cool green downfall of their leaves.
Suspended torsion upwards, animated
leaf-flight by the thousands, strive together:
light settles with the angel of gravity.
Our words are foliage and our solid bodies
the root of all we utter, twining upwards
through topic after topic. Round our stubborn
union, words assume a cloudy pattern,
thinned or excited by the breeze of passion,
restored again in passion’s settlement.
Mortals & Immortals is available in the Burchfield Penney Museum Store, online or by calling 716-878-3595.