(Pixabay)

AFTERMATHS

After last night’s rain, the world begun again—
you know what I mean, you have felt it often—
I go to the window. For a moment the world
only my backyard, such a gold as I have seen
behind the heads of saints in medieval paintings,
illumination setting off shrub, flower, weed.

This is summer I woke to as a child
after the long fall into sleep, black rain
which never ceased until my eyes could open,
first light an expectation without words.

You remember this. You had the same morning.
I’m four years old for both of us right now.
The window runs with gold. There was a time before time.
When morning was enough for everything.

Peter Cooley is Professor Emeritus of English and Director of Creative Writing at Tulane University where he taught from 1975 to 2018. His eleventh book of poetry, The One Certain Thing, was published by Carnegie Mellon in February. He is poetry editor of Christianity and Literature and was Louisiana Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017.

Also by this author
Published in the June 2020 issue: View Contents
© 2024 Commonweal Magazine. All rights reserved. Design by Point Five. Site by Deck Fifty.