Darkened not completely dark let us walk in the darkened field
trees in the field outlined against that which is less dark
under the trees are bushes with orange berries dark green leaves
not poetry’s mixing of yellow light blue sky darker than that
darkness of the leaves a modulation of the accumulated darkness
orange of the berries another modulation spreading out toward us
it is like the reverberation of a bell rung three times
like the call of a voice the call of a voice that is not there.
We will not look up how they got their name in a book of names
we will not trace the name’s root conjecture its first murmuring
the root of the berries their leaves is succoured by darkness
darkness like a large block of stone hauled on a wooden sled
like stone formed and reformed by a dark sea rolling in turmoil.
John Taggart, “Orange Berries Dark Green Leaves” from Is Music: Selected Poems. Copyright © 2010 by John Taggart. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
Source: Is Music: Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2010)
Discover this poem’s context and related poetry, articles, and media.
Poet
John Taggart
b. 1942
POET’S REGION
U.S., Mid-Atlantic
Subjects
Nature,
Landscapes & Pastorals,
Seas, Rivers, & Streams,
Trees & Flowers,
Arts & Sciences,
Poetry & Poets
Poetic Terms
Free Verse
Experimental poet, essayist, and editor John Taggart was born in Perry, Iowa, and grew up in a series of small towns in Indiana. He earned a BA at Earlham College, an MA at the University of Chicago, and a PhD at Syracuse University, where he wrote his dissertation on the poetry of Louis Zukofsky.
Influenced by poets Charles Olson and George Oppen, philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and novelist Herman Melville, Taggart’s poetry is . . .
Continue reading this biography
