First Place Winner, November 2003 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, November 2003

SACRIFICE, LEAVES AND WHIPPOORWILLS
T.E. Ballard
(Wild Poetry Forum)

Orange enters the green
crawls to the edge of a leaf
until it becomes fire,
a word falling
from the fingers of trees.

There are always two searching in the night.
It is easy to pretend
what is offered is not hollow;
a sound hiding in your hand.

I want to say it is a wing, the touch of a feather
after years of calling

but it is more
of an absence, color of leaves,
green, to orange, to brown
then dust.

My father believed us holy,
taught his daughters to be afraid
not of men in cars or guns or rape
but of silence. For days
he would sit with a question,
hold it over us
as if it were a knife.

Tonight we will not speak

now place your hand here,
now here

explain with your tongue graves
the holes we dig to love
tell me
where will our bodies lie -- who will be the bird,
the sheep?

Judge Wayne Miller’s comment: “In ‘Sacrifice, Leaves and Whippoorwills,’ I’m immediately drawn to both the attention to detail and compression of time in the poem’s opening description of a leaf changing color. But I’m more taken by the poet’s decision to describe the resulting ‘fire’ as ‘a word falling / from the fingers of trees.’ Here, the poet is tipping his/her hand--letting us know that (s)he’s not describing leaves falling, but the word ‘fire’ repeatedly landing in the poet’s mind as (s)he apprehends autumn leaves. We must subsequently read the ‘sound hiding in your hand’ not only as ‘what is offered,’ but also as the word ‘hollow’ itself, which indeed seems to echo from a cupped hand. The poem then enlarges into a love poem. As the speaker considers loss (as precipitated by autumn), she compares two types of silence: first, a father’s powerful and threatening silence, then a lover’s erotic silence. Finally, we have this haunting and mysterious ending, which pulls together the vulnerability of loving with questions of power, nature and death. As the speaker wonders where ‘our bodies [will] lie,’ she asks who will play what power roles, who will watch over the lovers as they risk focusing entirely on each other, and ultimately what will happen to their love in death. This poem deftly floats such multiple meanings to address how exciting, mysterious, and terrifying Eros can be.”