Spring/Summer 2006, Volume 22.3
Poetry
William Virgil Davis
William Virgil Davis has published three books of poetry: One Way to Reconstruct the Scene, which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize; The Dark Hours, which won the Calliope Press Chapbook Prize; and Winter Light. He has published poems in Poetry, The Nation, The Hudson Review, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, The New Criterion, The Sewanee Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Denver Quarterly, and Shenandoah, among others. He has also published several books of literary criticism, as well as critical essays in numerous periodicals. He is Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Baylor University. Read other poetry by William Virgil Davis published in Weber.
Morning
The light has opened the windows,
and I turn toward them
to see what the world has brought this day.
There is no sound in the barren limbs.
No snow has fallen
during the dark.
The birds, if birds there are,
are nowhere to be seen,
and are unheard.
There is not even the sound of the silence
beside me nor breath taken in
and let out again.
Seasons
The leaves turn in the wind
and the snow starts to fall.
The branches are barren and thin
in this season we name the fall.
The snow will pile deep between houses.
The rough wind knows nothing of fall.
Each season has its own season.
We rise in morning and at night fall.
Sentinel
Everything as silent as sentinel.
Trees feathered in fog; light
lessened, as white as ghosts.
We speak in whispers. We sit
and stare. Somewhere beyond
the screens a bird calls softly.
And although she is alone
and no doubt lonely, from
somewhere there unseen
there comes, as softly as hers,
another answering call.
Then all soft speech begins.