Field Guide

By Cynthia Zarin b. 1959 Cynthia Zarin

The stars are pinned between the leaves

of the trees, and love is only a harbinger,

a regular Boy Scout handbook

of things not to do, and how to do other things,

small chores you’d never think of,

and supper gets cold on the table.

But I can’t leave here without

taking you with me.

And the formal customs we once had,

like wearing red during hunting season,

are only signposts pointing the way

in and out of the territories—

colored leaves floating on the water,

hesitant, before the rains come.

Source: The Swordfish Tooth (Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)

Biography

Cynthia Zarin is a poet, journalist, and children’s book author. She earned a BA at Harvard and an MFA Columbia University, and has taught at Yale. Poet-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, she has also been a long-time contributor to the New Yorker. Known for her exacting language, Ernest Hilbert noted that Zarin “composes formal, meditative poems that remind the reader of Elizabeth Bishop and Richard Wilbur.” . . .

Continue reading this biography