Your Favorite Poems

Hollylane · 07-13-2012, 09:56 PM

A Thought
by Benjamin S. Grossberg

Like a feather descending
in its back-and-forth motion,
slow twirl down to one
end of a balance, and that end
begins to sink—
but so slowly that days pass,
an unscrolling of weather,
the view out the same window
over a series of months:
trees burst in lime-green flowers
so tiny that three or four buds
could rest on the tip of your thumb,
and then come rainy days,
darker leaves, and brightness
expanding like the yawning
of one just woken—
everything unfolding, changing.
And now you find it is
autumn, and somewhere
inside is a difference. A quiet,
monumental thing, difference.
Some dream had long
seemed foundation wall
to a structure you’d hoped to build—
a Jeffersonian grandness.
You’d imagined marble, imagined
columns. But now it is you
who seem to find the structure
more trouble than it’s worth, you
who might just, you decide, be
okay without so much grandiosity.
You even surprise yourself
with that word, grandiosity,
with its undertone of mocking.
What was it? A word, a look
from a man that wasn’t—
you realized a moment too late—
directed at you. A small, casual
failure that added its name
like another entry on a long
petition. No one, not even you
heard the creaking sweep,
the rusted iron gate
of your will. Though afterward,
at the window, you may
have wondered what bird
dropped that feather—
though so long ago now
there’s no telling what kind,
or on its way to what country.

07-13-2012, 09:56 PM	#10
Hollylane Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: . Preferred Pronoun?: . Relationship Status: . Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: . Posts: 11,495 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 34,694 Thanked 26,362 Times in 5,875 Posts Rep Power: 21474862	A Thought by Benjamin S. Grossberg Like a feather descending in its back-and-forth motion, slow twirl down to one end of a balance, and that end begins to sink— but so slowly that days pass, an unscrolling of weather, the view out the same window over a series of months: trees burst in lime-green flowers so tiny that three or four buds could rest on the tip of your thumb, and then come rainy days, darker leaves, and brightness expanding like the yawning of one just woken— everything unfolding, changing. And now you find it is autumn, and somewhere inside is a difference. A quiet, monumental thing, difference. Some dream had long seemed foundation wall to a structure you’d hoped to build— a Jeffersonian grandness. You’d imagined marble, imagined columns. But now it is you who seem to find the structure more trouble than it’s worth, you who might just, you decide, be okay without so much grandiosity. You even surprise yourself with that word, grandiosity, with its undertone of mocking. What was it? A word, a look from a man that wasn’t— you realized a moment too late— directed at you. A small, casual failure that added its name like another entry on a long petition. No one, not even you heard the creaking sweep, the rusted iron gate of your will. Though afterward, at the window, you may have wondered what bird dropped that feather— though so long ago now there’s no telling what kind, or on its way to what country.