Practical Green Table
I thought to write an elegy
as reply to your questions
to pitch the word as far forward
like a dolphin out of the sea
over a threshold, to behold
the land as practical and green
as this table, a space to write
and walk into like a kitchen
hearing the conjuct vowels
what does a reader suppose
if not the promise of a text
the ultimate form at the end
of a chain of forms infinite
summed to a singular value
the elegy as a place to begin.
Copyright Credit: Mark McMorris, "Practical Green Table" from The Book of Landings. Copyright © 2016 by Mark McMorris. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: The Book of Landings (Wesleyan University Press, 2016)