Poems by William O'Connell
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Dawn is When the Dead Breathe
by William O'Connell
From Canary Fall 2020
Bill lives in the Connecticut River Watershed between “The Great Beaver” (aka Sugarloaf Mountain) and the Hadley Range in Emily Dickinson's town.
A great blue heron cruises
suburban rooftops. It calls, hoarse,
trembling, out of key.
One child sleeps and another,
inside my lover,
breeds, divides, breathes.
We pray to the moon’s
invisible light, meld
to the physical, to the deepest recesses
of limbs and hair.
When we open our mouths
vowels form and push out,
vibrate, and sing.
We listen with our ears,
with our smallest bones.
© William O'Connell
Momentary Light in Momentary Time
by William O'Connell
From Canary Fall 2020
The limits of words and paint.
Music is unbound: a child knows this—
straining to utter
I want.
The insistent thrush each dawn
that sings its way west and north—
Wampanoag on the bluffs of the Cape
worship as the Mayflower slides in.
I let my soul down and walk awhile.
Even the rich can’t buy certainty.
First light touches my cheek
and the tip of my nose before
filling my eyes.
© William O'Connell
Nightsong, Autumn
by William O'Connell
From Canary Fall 2019
Tell me, steel-belt moon
rising from the Quabbin,
do you still hold the heart
of the forest where you shine
on the movements of mice
between trees? Are you what
held the coyote’s single howl
last week below our bedroom window
to lift us momentarily from
the daily grind of dying?
How your light, for instance,
intersects the darker
reddening of leaves,
the desire for desire amid
the wilderness of God’s disfavor,
our souls twisted into shapes
we can’t manage?
In the bare garden, I wander,
unable to sleep.
Some lettuce still pokes up
from its rubble.
In moonlight, poetry is diminished.
Say less, be quiet. A slight breeze
rises, falls.
© William O'Connell