Poetry Magazine
Of the Divine as Absence and Single Letter
If our view were not a Holiday Inn
but a fringe of trees, I could say G here
is our greenly hidden.
If we lived
amid Joe-Pye weed and high grass
instead of spackle and peeling plaster
I could say perhaps
I’m listening to G now
but mean the owl, a wind playing the silo,
a sticking sorrow,
any sound but the snore
of our latest visitor on the futon. Dear G,
please make him turn, make me kinder.
I’m not far from unfathoming it all.
Source: Poetry (November 2012).
Biography
Idra Novey is the author of Exit, Civilian, a 2011 National Poetry Series Selection and a Best Book of 2012 by Cold Front Magazine and The Volta. She is also the author of The Next Country (2008) and the translator of several books of Brazilian poetry and a novel by Clarice Lispector.
In April 2013, Novey was a featured writer on Harriet.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Religion, Faith & Doubt, God & the Divine
Poetic Terms Free Verse
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