Jenny Argante’s latest collection is Working in the Cracks Between (Oceanbooks, 2012.) She is a published writer and professional editor who created and taught on the Waiariki Institute of Technology’s online Diploma in Creative Writing for seven years. She is now engaged with preparing Poetivity: How to Read and Write Poetry for publication later this year.
Grounded
To measure the sun's
height
you don't need to
be
a bird, a probe,
or
winged Icarus failing to
scope
red-hot
perplexity,
fallen to
zero
Do as the wise men
do
who nightly study
stars,
the moon's cold
certainties
emerging, pale,
red-eyed,
to calculate sun's
distance
where it
strides:
meaning
determined
with both feet on the
ground.
simplicity
the cut
face of the quarry
the
sharp upswell of hill
the
Norfolk
across
the bordering rill
the
palimpsest of unleaved trees
as
ghostly as a dream
beside
the road the railway track
beside
the track a stream
beside
the stream a barricade
of
boulders, rock and scree
beyond
unseen, beneath unknown
experienced in me
beside
the rock, the ripening range
that
draws the upward eye
high
snow, low cloud and a pale moon
against
a leaden sky
