This week, THERMOS is running a feature of Laura Walker’s poetry, assembled by Cassie Donish. We continue today with selections from Walker’s Genesis. Please check back throughout the week for more new poems, and an interview.
from Genesis
in the beginning what was startled flew up into the liquid sky. and the children came tiptoeing round, to see the man sleeping there in the fields; and they carried their pie plates and rosined spoons out onto the clay
and the plows, whiskering away in the darkness; and the sheeted moss; and the furrows, newly made, baring themselves among the birds
and we were small and formless and our hands did not settle
~
in the beginning a way of yielding, and the sound of retrieval and rattled blue frames. and intentionality, and the young; and those who held themselves apart continued apart and rose in sanctioned masses to rooftops and to bloom. and the forgetting; and the struck expanse; and the way the light aircraft made their maps across the sky, billowy and upturned
and the angle
and the shatter
and the glass was written, and contained; and the air was remedial, and alight; and the noise of boots on shards was something knocking on a door, far away and beneath a handle
~
in the beginning the lines were rampant and the air was full of clock and bird. the smallest lay down among her notes and wrappers blew about the trees, between the branches and the memory of hours and a small ticking sound, not to be ignored
and the raptors
and the hard wiring
and each bright thing weighed itself in succession, positioned itself against the ledge and lined up two by two
~
in the beginning the stones came loose, and the words were wax and singing under the faint porch light. and a pocket, and a flare; and the birds assembled at last, awaiting snow and cloth and the sound of sticks. and the fires; and the arrival; and the clouds bought and paid for
and the settled
and the prostrate
and the arrival was styrofoam, and inchoate; and the welcome was creviced, and slit; and the sound increased against the walls in battles and shifting shores
~
in the beginning what we found just off the edge of our paper would circulate again, fall back among us as dreams of snow or the slough of someone’s new suit. the children were brought round to enter the fields again; and they were collaged in reds and browns, and told which birds to hold and which to scatter with their feet. the morning light came round again, and someone held spoons and someone held clatter and sawdust piled and began to converge
and we were a building
and we were a formation
and we were sick, and suited, and grouped in twos and threes
THERMOS 