Birds small enough to nest in our young cypress
Are physicians to us
They burst from the tree exactly
Where the mind ends and the eye sees
Another world the equal of this one
Though only a small boy naked in the sun
Glad day glad day I was born
Sparrow hatted old New York
And the physician who brought me
Drowned under sail next day in a calm sea
There are birds small enough to live forever
Where the mind ends and where
My love and I once planted a cypress
Which is God to us
Source: Poetry (June 2009).
MORE FROM THIS ISSUE
This poem originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of Poetry magazine
Born in the Bronx, Donald Revell received his PhD at SUNY Buffalo and is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, translations, and essays. Steeped in the work of Henry David Thoreau and William Carlos Williams, Revell’s poetry is “seriously Christian but not doctrinaire, mystical without setting intellect aside, angry over political matters without ever growing stale or shrill, and more often joyful than any other . . .
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Poem Categorization
SUBJECT
Living,
Infancy,
Time & Brevity,
Relationships,
Nature,
Trees & Flowers,
Animals,
The Body,
Religion
POET’S REGION
U.S., Southwestern
Poetic Terms
Free Verse
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