What Light: This Week’s Poem: Todd Pederson
"What Light: This Week's Poem," sponsored by Magers and Quinn Booksellers, brings you a poem every week by a Minnesota poet, selected by a panel of writers and publishers. The What Light anthology will be out soon! Look for it . . .
Churchyard, Crossed Pines
Population 268
Where these trees clasp each green star
loosely,
like disappointments, the iron mutter
of far-off trains slips through
our churchyard, whose monuments
& testimony
open like a Bible-page of i’s & t’s.
I dot & cross myself, & as the trees
or passing trains,
let my shadow—this reaching heart’s
restless attentions—be,
& edge beyond the headstones & hereafters—
the yardgate’s hook
& fasten—to a crossroads lamp
considering its unhurried street.
Eyes all-at-once
open in our going-home hour—glad for this night
sky’s increasing bruise
& twilight where it pours
into my alley’s yawn.
Penitent
& blessed
in south Missouri; where my Sunday TV shows
are on, & our porch lights hum till dawn.
Poetics
For me, poetry is the response to what are often simple, yet commanding, occurrences—such as an affecting scene from a favorite movie. The most gratifying ideas are those that increase and reach, inexplicably, for one or more seemingly disparate elements of my life and draw them into the piece. In these moments, poetry surpasses a string of lines and stanzas written on a page; poetry becomes the medium through which I (perhaps, we) celebrate this life’s great joys, and overcome its disappointments.
Biography
Todd Pederson is a 2005 graduate of the Master of Business Communication program at St. Thomas University, and holds an undergraduate degree in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota. He works as a technical writer for a biomedical corporation in Chaska and resides in Eden Prairie with his wife and two children, whom he thanks for their patience and inspiration. Recent works appear in Summit Avenue Review.
>