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Owens, Elisabeth, R. (ed.) / Encore: more of parallel press poets
(2006)
Turk, Tisha
Fall, p. 62
Page 62
Fall You tell me the sky's going to fall soon, all the gold leaves testing gravity on their way down. They'll let go, drift, fade past the colors of anger. Their voices will rustle over the still-green ground. When you rise, the shape of you lingers in the bent grass, as if the earth wants you back in its embrace. I watch the blades spring up again, all our effects unlasting. I've felt it too, your body's weight, the grip of your roots in me, now windblown, brittle, scratching against my skin. I keep forgetting to grieve. I keep releasing you, like the trees making room for something new and unguessable. I've shaken you off, still beautiful in your last days, red on the tree, turning to gold as you fall. Tisha Turk Poet's Statement Falling is, of course, one of the most common metaphors for how we end up in love or out of it. I wrote this poem at the end of September, when the leaves out- side my window were just beginning to turn; I wanted to think not just about what falls but about what's left behind after the fall, the roots and branches that remain, the shift from necessary connection to separation. It was an easy poem to begin but a difficult poem to finish. 62
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