Literature 6-19-2006

What Light: This Week’s Poem: Greg Watson

Greg Watson is the twelfth poet chosen in this once-a-week yearlong survey of Minnesota’s poets and their work. The series is sponsored by Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

Greg Watson
1

SHARD

Small fragments of light
between the limbs of winter trees: the way

a single word
bears the spark of all others,

or how one memory

reflects another — a shard of crystal

in the window

collecting the dust the sun has cast off,

turning us back once more,
once more to the world

which grieves both our absence

and return.

Greg Watson’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Seattle Review, Sulphur River Literary Review, and Writer’s Journal. His two most recent collections are Cold Water Memory (2001) and Pale Light from a Distant Room (2004), both published by March Street Press. His latest, Things You Will Never See Again, will be published later this year. He lives in St. Paul.

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