To Katharine: At Fourteen Months
By Joelle Biele
All morning, you’ve studied the laws
of spoons, the rules of books, the dynamics
of the occasional plate, observed the principles
governing objects in motion and objects
at rest. To see if it will fall, and if it does,
how far, if it will rage like a lost penny
or ring like a Chinese gong—because
it doesn’t have to—you lean from your chair
and hold your cup over the floor.
It curves in your hand, it weighs in your palm,
it arches like a wave, it is a dipper
full of stars, and you’re the wind timing
the pull of the moon, you’re the water
measuring the distance from which we fall.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2007 by Joelle Biele, whose most recent book of poetry is White Summer, Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. Poem reprinted from West Branch, Fall/Winter, 2007, by permission of Joelle Biele.