Talking with the Gigantic Maple About the Dragonfly<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Neither you
\nnor I
\ncan mimic
\na dragonfly
\nthough your seed-wings
\nclack
\nlike their wings
\nwhen they take off
\nin unison
\nto practice backflips
\nabove the lake.<\/p>\n
Nor can we balance
\non a single blade
\nof shore grass,
\nadmiring ourselves
\nto shame the lake
\ninto polishing its mirror.<\/p>\n
But we can be still
\nand hear the quiet
\nbetween
\ntwo echoing thrush.<\/p>\n
And in the hush
\nof our leaves
\nand breaths
\nconjoined,
\nwe can see
\nuniverses
\nin the dragonfly\u2019s
\neight eyes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(from \u201cFlowering Branches\u201d in The Novice Insomniac<\/em> (Copper Canyon 1996)) <\/p>\n For Emily Warn,<\/a> poetry links music and meaning every bit as powerfully and oddly as religious traditions do, inventing complicated, invisible relations. She moved to the Pacific Northwest 1978 to work for North Cascades National Park, and a year later moved to Seattle where she has lived, more or less ever since. Sherecently served as the Webby Award\u2013winning founding editor of poetryfoundation.org, and now divides her time between Seattle and Twisp, Washington. Warn has published five collections of poetry, including three books:\u00a0The Leaf Path\u00a0<\/em><\/a>(1982),The Novice Insomniac\u00a0<\/em><\/a>(1996) and\u00a0Shadow Architect<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2008), all from Copper Canyon Press, and two chapbooks\u00a0The Book of Esther<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(1986) and\u00a0Highway Suite\u00a0<\/em>(1987). Her essays and poems appear widely, including in\u00a0Poetry<\/em>,\u00a0BookForum<\/em>,\u00a0Blackbird<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0Parabola<\/em>,\u00a0The Seattle Times<\/em>, The Writers\u2019 Almanac.<\/a> She has taught creative writing or served as writer-in-residence at many schools and arts centers. She was educated at Kalamazoo College and the University of Washington, and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Talking with the Gigantic Maple About the Dragonfly Neither you nor I can mimic a dragonfly though your seed-wings clack like their wings when they take off in unison to practice backflips above the lake. Nor can we balance … Continue reading
\n\u201cI stood where you would not see me
\nAnd my armload of flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n