Summer
In the cornfields
of Coles County
stones wait
to become rocks,
and rocks wait
to become trees,
and the trees
wait for cremation
their ashes
rising like old men
rising from beds
of ferns and ivy
slow as the git go
steady as the rain
on the first day
of carnival
in that summer
when they first
came startled
by the angel
beauty of hands
husking corn
John Guzlowski‘s writing has appeared in North American Review, Ontario Review, Nimrod, Salon, and many other journals and reviews. Garrison Keillor read his poem “What My Father Believed” on Writers Almanac. Guzlowski’s fifth book of poems, Echoes of Tattered Tongues (Aquila Polonica, 2016) was selected as a highlighted book for this year’s Publishers Weekly Poetry Month issue.
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