Category Archives: poetry

a return to flight

Over and over,
I’ve been that
(wilted flowers in hand)
silhouette to a setting sun
on a dried-out hill
saying stoic goodbyes.

But when I close my eyes,
(from my earliest
slippery seconds),
I have always seen
a return to flight,
my remains scattered by the aching hands
of my family back to the
soft wet arms 
of a briny sea.

how I’ll fly then —
as gently as cresting waves in
warmly breaking sunlight.

Guest Post: "I still can’t get it right"

What a last line by poet Kathryn Stripling Byer. Check it out~

American Life in Poetry: Column 374
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

The following poem by Kathryn Stripling Byer is the second in a series of related poems called
Southern Fictions. Despite all the protective barriers we put up between us and the world, there’s
always a man with a wink that can rip right through. Byer has served as North Carolina’s Poet
Laureate.

I still can’t get it right

I don’t know. I still can’t get it right,
the way those dirt roads cut across the flats
and led to shacks where hounds and muddy shoats
skulked roundabouts. Describing it sounds trite
as hell, the good old South I love to hate.
The truth? What’s that? How should I know?
I stayed inside too much. I learned to boast
of stupid things. I kept my ears shut tight,
as we kept doors locked, windows locked,
the curtains drawn. Now I know why.
The dark could hide things from us. Dark could see
what we could not. Sometimes those dirt roads shocked
me, where they ended up: I watched a dog die
in the ditch. The man who shot him winked at me.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2001 by Kathryn Stripling Byer from her most recent book of poems,
Southern Fictions, Jacar Press, 2011. Descent, her new collection, is forthcoming from LSU Press.
Reprinted by permission of Kathryn Stripling Byer and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation
Contact: alp@poetryfoundation.org
This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.