This is the first of four poems by Seth that we’ll be posting over the course of the next few days. Each of them handle different subject matter, but all with similar grace and fluency. Enjoy.
Telemachus Creek
From every faultline of darkness
a blue dragonfly skirts
the glistening stone.
This is the grace of August
coming to haunt us,
to fill the paltry day.
I cup my hands
and they fill with water.
I waltz in the descending night.
Overhead, a daylit moon
unsettles the heart,
dislodges the comfortable chains,
and the conflagrant self
steps out of the body,
solitary and luminous,
like that single bright godetia
on the summer hill.
Seth Jani lives in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). Their work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, The Comstock Review, Ghost City Review, Rust+Moth and Pretty Owl Poetry, among others. Their full-length collection, Night Fable, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2018. Visit them at www.sethjani.com.