Year End Day One: G.C. Waldrep

Welcome to the end of the year countdown!

It’s been a hard week here in Missouri, and now some winter weather to move us further into December . . . so, to help us out, some poems from books of poetry from 2007!

First up, day one, the first poem from G.C. Waldrep’s Disclamor. A good poem to start the December countdown, for its holly, yes, but more the question. The desire past that single point.

Cloud of Witnesses

Day’s cage again and this time I try for a breeze,
I open a window to the east and a window to the west and I think
that this is something like the holly that lifts its blood-
fruit bright to the morning sun, to the afternoon sun,
to the evening breeze though with less fervor,
and I think the phone will ring. It always has. It is not ashamed of this,
its function, like the hollyberries in their naked plenty
which bob and weave, the bees which,
seeking their gilded herm, their bone-skep pene-
trate and stop at one single point, as light in certain media.
I crave this aftersilence. Angry buzz as night falls:
that artificial sun, a carnegie of lovers. I had rather been weeping.
It is beautiful. It is almost fearfully beautiful.
It is most fearsomely beautiful. I am still thinking, I am still waiting
for the phone to ring. The holly plays host to its spare nation.
If I believed you what would change. Tell me.