Poem of the Week by Brian Teare

Here's this week's poem by local poet Brian Teare. Enjoy the poem and this first week of spring.

Embodiment

(White Birch)


how a birch shirks its skins : strange
grain of the language of prayer : to disturb
words addressed to where God is is
what writing is : alphabet alive beneath
the alphabet so far into whiteness
each mind to itself creation come crawling
matter out of nothing : always
longing inquiries at the threshold a question
unanswered : not skin but the look
of skin : what once overheard the talk
of God became matter : ask the birch
did the soul have a choice :

from Sight Map by Brian Teare, University of California Press (2009)