The Moment When Your Name is Pronounced

By Forrest Gander b. 1956 Forrest Gander

This high up, the face

eroding; the red cedar slopes

over. An accident chooses a stranger.

Each rain unplugs roots

which thin out like a hand.

Above the river, heat

lightning flicks silently

and the sound holds, coiled in air.

Some nights you are here

dangling a Valpolicella bottle,

staring down at the flat water

that slides by with its mouth full of starlight.

It is always quiet

when we finish the wine.

While you were a living man

how many pictures were done

of you. Serious as an angel,

lacing up your boots. Ice

blows into my fields.

Forrest Gander, “The Moment When Your Name Is Pronounced” from Rush to the Lake (Cambridge, AliceJames Books, 1988). Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: Rush to the Lake (1988)

Biography

Born in California’s Mojave Desert, poet Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and attended the College of William & Mary, where he majored in geology. After receiving an MA in literature from San Francisco State University, Gander moved to Mexico, then to Arkansas, where his poetry—informed by his knowledge of geology—turned its attention to landscape as foreground or source of action.

Gander’s books of poetry include Eye Against . . .

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