\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Featherstone is a poet, writer, and educator.\u00a0 He was an editor of the New Republic<\/em>, and has served as the principal of the Commonwealth School in Boston, and for many years as the faculty leader of an acclaimed teacher education program at Michigan State University. He is the author of a number of books,\u00a0including Dear Josie,\u00a0 Witnessing the Hopes and Failures of Democratic Education<\/em> (Teachers College Press, 2002).\u00a0 His work has appeared in\u00a0 magazines such as Ploughshares<\/em> and the Harvard Review<\/em>. He has published a poetry collection, Brace’s Cove<\/em> (New Issues), and has\u00a0a new ms in preparation. Mr. Featherstone and his family have been living in East Gloucester summers, part-time, or full-time since the 1960’s.<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Upon Reading that a Committee <\/strong>of the Catholic Church Has Abolished Limbo<\/strong><\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Instead, we follow a loose thread from the hem of a cotton dress to a border —<\/p>\n the vast rim of vanished children in the arms of unknown nurses, their cries rising unanswered —<\/p>\n the zone of slippage between life and life repository and keep and dump of treasured and wasted<\/p>\n things, unfulfilled vows, the cat gone missing — and all those on this earth who die baptized only<\/p>\n by the waters of kindness — Oh,\u00a0 Reiko,\u00a0 tell me the story again — your grandfather,<\/p>\n home on his last furlough from the Pacific war, the black lacquer chopsticks flashing as he taught<\/p>\n his small daughter how to hold one grain of rice.<\/p>\n   \nVoice<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0For Ornette Coleman<\/em><\/p>\n \n<\/em>Notes are crap<\/p>\n Sound is real<\/p>\n Parker looked at his watch<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Put the horn in the case<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n And walked out the door<\/p>\n He knew what he could play<\/p>\n He knew this audience \nWas not ready for the unknown \nYou can’t\u00a0 learn life<\/p>\n Only way you die<\/p>\n Is if something kills you<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Sound is Armstrong<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Improvising\u00a0 so beyond<\/p>\n Never\u00a0 a straight chord<\/p>\n His\u00a0 high note<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Not only for the high<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n For humanity<\/p>\n I listened to the cantor Joseph Rosenblatt<\/p>\n I cried like a baby<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Sobbing, praying, singing, all in one breath<\/p>\n I said wait<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n You can’t find those notes<\/p>\n They are not notes<\/p>\n They don’t exist<\/p>\n He’s resolving<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n The sound<\/p>\n Of a human being<\/p>\n The sad of it<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n When you name\u00a0 you go\u00a0 too far \nNo codify\u00a0 no\u00a0 idol<\/p>\n My mother was born Christmas Day<\/p>\n After I got my saxophone \nI would go to her<\/p>\n When I learned to play something by ear<\/p>\n Listen to this, listen to this, I would say \nYou know what she said<\/p>\n Junior,\u00a0 you don’t have to tell me<\/p>\n I know who you are. \nWords can’t tell<\/p>\n Sound does. Only voices do<\/p>\n This proves God has no master \nThe\u00a0 human race has wasted its history<\/p>\n   \nEmerson<\/strong><\/p>\n  <\/p>\n Seeking what he fears —<\/p>\n fourteen months after, searching for new scripture, \nhe walks with the shovel to open his wife’s coffin.<\/p>\n There is no object so foul<\/em><\/p>\n that intense light will not make it beautiful<\/em><\/p>\n Calling from old brightness, \nshe pins a washed sheet on the tossing wind —<\/p>\n clean, white, not the dank cerements<\/p>\n of his daily mind. She contained the sea’s trembling —<\/p>\n their faith lodged in magnetism,<\/p>\n Not the errant compass needle.<\/p>\n His boots leaking ground water,<\/p>\n he refuses second sight. The soldered eye<\/p>\n misses the world’s bright wedding.<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n The Age of Ice<\/strong> \nNo snow or wind to mar the shining facts<\/p>\n of daylight or recollection’s salt of night stars —<\/p>\n snap-frozen yesterday, smooth as doctrine but for the long glacial \nseams that groan and shove like mastodons.<\/p>\n Clear shallow bottom flies by — a lily in amber ice,<\/p>\n tuft of frozen thistle down, full of seeds. \nSun, ice, buried flower alchemize:<\/p>\n a beehive in mind’s cello, knock of apple, the dump<\/p>\n of summer frogs. Breath catches \nat muscled brightness underfoot — a pickerel<\/p>\n flashing the serene soft-lit parlors of fishes.<\/p>\n The ancient principle of ice is maintained by green leaves<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n and fossils and ten thousand seasons of hope’s polish.<\/p>\n Measured depths and daily risks instruct<\/p>\n a catechism of cold and melt. The haloes of the icons<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n in the sun’s glaring mercies<\/p>\n are proof of my cataracts, young and growing;<\/p>\n at the sight some old sweet edge divides and tells me I will die.<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n My motion dissents, calling out blue<\/p>\n and blueness to sky and Brace’s Cove, wildness.<\/p>\n I scrape quick on borrowed skates, as wick as any fern \nor muskrat or ear of corn.<\/p>\n When the great cold came all living things did not die.<\/p>\n Humans walked the frozen mirror<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n cut images with bones, took bits of burning birch<\/p>\n and outlined spring from memory.<\/p>\n I try a shaky figure eight<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n and meet, face housed in fur, the ancestor<\/p>\n who on the cave’s wall drew the pregnant mare.<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n For an Old Friend, Sober After Many Years\u00a0<\/strong> \nYou and I stood,\u00a0 astonished,<\/p>\n to see them at play — dropping a feather, \nrecovering it in mid-air.\u00a0\u00a0 Years later I learned<\/p>\n the long shadow of their necessity: \none week of freezing summer fog<\/p>\n with no bugs yielded ranks of small corpses \nshriveled in the nests from hunger.<\/p>\n All praise then for the discipline of tree swallows<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n burning through Niles Pond’s sun stoked mists —<\/p>\n they shoot like stars over a fresh moon that rises<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n over our old planet of luck and decay.<\/p>\n By wanting one thing or a very few things<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n they turn the morning from what it is not to what it is.<\/p>\n  <\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n  <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n Gloucesterpoetlaureate.org is donated by American Storyboard, Inc.Copyright (c) 2015<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Joseph Featherstone is a poet, writer, and educator.\u00a0 He was an editor of the New Republic, and has served as the principal of the Commonwealth School in Boston, and for many years as the faculty leader of an acclaimed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-61","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n