Sherry Chandler » George Ella Lyon

George Ella Lyon

No more appropriate poet or poem with which to end this month of poets and poetry than this from George Ella Lyon, who needs no introduction from me. The poem is from Where I’m From, Where Poems Come From (Absey & Co., 1999).

Growing Light

I write this poem
out of darkness
to you
who are also in darkness
because our lives demand it.

This poem is a hand on your shoulder
a bone touch to go with you
through the hard birth of vision.
In other words, love
shapes this poem
                            is the fist that holds the chisel
                            muscle that drags marble
                            and burns with the weight
                                                        of believing a face
                                                        lives in the stone
                                                        a breathing word in the body.

I tell you
though the darkness
has been ours
words will give us
give our eyes, opened in promise
a growing light

Reprinted by permission of the author and publisher

Related posts:

    George D. Prentice and Sue Mundy
    George Eklund
    Introducing myself ….
    George D. Prentice
    – attributed to George Washington

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1 Comment

  • 1. Sherry Chandler&hellip replies at 19th May 2005, 5:55 pm :

    [...] m The Spoken Word series at Fauntleroy’s Café features readings by George Ella Lyon and Leatha Kendrick with a jazz quartet on this Friday, May 20. Music begins about 8:0 [...]

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