Richard Higgs
Richard sent this poem recently via email, and his only comment,
besides thanking us for sharing a dinner with them, was "see attached."
However, I will tell you this much: At that dinner mentioned earlier,
Richard had told us a story about what happened "one warm and sunny
afternoon" that was most unusual and surprising to him. The
poem
below comes from that story.
ONE WARM AND SUNNY AFTERNOON
Because he was a
child
he understood the
world
and then without
warning
the tree in the
ditch trembled
convulsed twisted
danced
flung small dark
birds
which had moments
before
been singing like
idiots
in the shade of its
branches
to several points on
the calm horizon
then returned to its
old
familiar
pose.
He ran down the road
toward home
the blue and white
sky bearing down
understanding
nothing
it turned out
about the world.
—Richard Higgs,
January 2008
One never knows where Richard Higgs will enter a poem. Indeed, it is
always an adventure! At a small gathering of friends the other night,
Richard asked us if could read a new poem he'd just finished. It was
"Listen." After reading it twice to us, I immediately asked, "Can I
include this in Szárnyú?" He gratiously
consented.
LISTEN
Three angels glide down
on their dihedral span
blackest silhouettes, even in this glaring sun
They set about their assignment
removing your flesh from the face of the earth
in the only way they can
They work in silence
listening to the insistent hissing
of the sand in the wind
Sensing reverence in the air
the crows in the shivering cottonwood
have ceased to jeer
As one angel grips your hand (in the only way they can)
and one pecks at your eye
and one tugs, gently, at your ear
—Richard Higgs,
June 2008
See what reading history can do? The following poem comes from
Richard's reading about the Aztecs, near the end of their civilization
before Cortez came upon the scene in 1519. Keep reading, Richard! And
keep writing about it!
FEAR OF DARKNESS
From
atop the redstained steps
in the imperial city of
Tenochtitlan
uneasy priests eye the lowering
of the Mexica
sun
unlulled by the hum
of a whirlpool of flies
suspended
nearby
above the killing stone.
The casual insults of the
pleasure girls
tossed to idling warriors as they step lightly over
pools of blood
in the temple square below
sound more distant
than ever before.
The sullen city smolders
like the
mountain beyond
from fifty thousand hearths along the shore.
They
have no words for Fear Of Darkness
They only have the fear.
—Richard Higgs, August 2008
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