The First Person

By David Baker b. 1954 David Baker

What I wanted seemed little enough at the time.

There was snow on the ground, grayish and sticking

to the mud—the promise of plenty to come.

Snow gathered already in the corners of sills.

When she spoke what we had sensed for weeks

without saying, her voice fell clear, unwavering, soft

as the day. It hardly had to do with us anymore.

The crazy tilt of the carport across the alley

was all I could see for awhile, the weight

on its wobbly roof like a terrible joke.

But that was wrong—that was wrong. Before long

the snows shook down on what we had done.

What I wanted was to ignore it all, sit there

in stillness, shepherding logs to the fire

while the old ones went pink to white to gray.

Source: The Truth about Small Towns (University of Arkansas Press, 1998)

Biography

Though he is known primarily as a poet of the Midwest, David Baker was born in Bangor, Maine in 1954. He spent his childhood in Missouri and attended Central Missouri State University before receiving his PhD from the University of Utah. He has won fellowships and awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Currently a Professor of English . . .

Continue reading this biography