The Fall/Winter issue (v5.n2) of Poetry Northwest is beginning to arrive now in mailboxes everywhere; and with it–in the northern hemisphere, at least–the longer nights and falling leaves of autumn. To mark both of these arrivals, we bring you, this week and next, two riffs by Eric McHenry on Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” A third appears as “Stay” in the current issue of the magazine.
The Lovelier As They Fall (1)
Fall’s first gold is green.
The leaves give up their sheen
for texture and a tinge.
Their edges curl and singe.
Then, like a book of matches,
the whole crown kindles, catches,
and glows against the lawn.
So day goes down to dawn.
—
Eric McHenry’s first book of poems, Potscrubber Lullabies (Waywiser Press), received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award in 2007. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Common Knowledge, Seattle Review, The Guardian (U.K.) and Slate. He teaches creative writing at Washburn University.
Next: more from Eric McHenry’s “The Lovelier As They Fall”