A World of Light

By John Reibetanz b. 1944 John Reibetanz

If I close my eyes now, I can still see them

canopied by the visor of my sunhat:

three children islanded on a narrow rim

of earth between the huge crack-willow that

they squat before, hushed, poised to net a frog,

and the pond the frog will jump to (it got away)

a glass its dive will shatter.

The unbroken image

pleases my mind’s eye with its density,

such thick crisscross of tree-trunk, earth, and tall grass

I see no breach, no source for the light that steeps it

but a blue burning in the pond’s green glass.

The grass withered, the tree blew down, earth caught

the frog, the children grew. Sky’s ice-blue flame

teased along the wick it would consume.

“A World of Light” © 2000 by John Reibetanz. Used by permission of Brick Books.

Source: Mining for Sun (Brick Books, 2000)

Biography

Born in New York City, poet John Reibetanz earned a BA in English from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and an MA and a PhD in English language and literature from Princeton University. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Transformations (2006), Mining for Sun (2000), and Ashbourn (1986), as well as the critical study The Lear World (1977). His poetry has been included in several . . .

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