Annie Finch Poems

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• Best Annie Finch Poems
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A Valentine For Hands

 names, silence—quietest minutes
(building like rain or returning like seas)
since they have touched me, your warm hands have sown
gentlest sounds, touches and hours
(or, building like rain, turning, like seas)

(building like rain, or returning like seas)
ripples and springs—the shiniest rivers—
since they have known me your warm hands have gathered
smallest, most stars—happiest skies—
simplest—touched—sounding—hours...Read more of this...

Elegy For My Father

 HLF, August 8, 1918—August 22, 1997

“Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
Is answered in the vortex of our grave
The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.”
—Hart Crane, “Voyages”

“If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein

Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly
past the long edge of the last human shore,
there are deep windows the waves haven't opened,
where night is...Read more of this...

Landing Under Water I See Roots

 All the things we hide in water
hoping we won't see them go—
(forests growing under water
press against the ones we know)—

and they might have gone on growing
and they might now breathe above
everything I speak of sowing
(everything I try to love)....Read more of this...

Moon

 Then are you the dense everywhere that moves,
the dark matter they haven't yet walked through?

No, I’m not. I’m just the shining sun,
sometimes covered up by the darkness.

But in your beauty—yes, I know you see—
There is no covering, no constant light....Read more of this...