The Evangelism Of Things

Brian Henderson
From:   Light in Dark Objects. Ekstasis Editions, 2000.

Thought alone would not bring me to the river
whose banks are wet fields of yellow iris.

When the storm breaks, the seen lightning
is called up out of the earth by the invisible.

A name is an attempt to slow the bright scatter,
an embering, in whose arms you hold your lover.

My names have peeled off me, crackling, burnt
skins. Walls sprout little wings of fire.

I hear overhead the whickering flight,
as if something infinite and outmoded were passing through its object.

This is the evangelism of things--how they reach out,
calling to us, with their supple translucence.

My life is this haunted, ordinary thing
it never thought it could be.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Brian Henderson's works copyright © to the author.