Dawn is cold.

The hero ventures out—that’s dawn.
When he’s gone, the camera collects pictures of other things.
When he gets back, it already knows everything there is to know,
just from watching the room.


There’s no shadows now.
Inside the room, it’s dark; the night air is cool.
In summer, you can smell the orange blossoms.
If there’s wind, one tree will do it—you don’t need the whole orchard.


I do what the hero does.
He opens the window. He has his reunion with the earth.

from Louise Glück’s “Via delle Ombre,” A Village Life (2009)

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Dawn is cold.  I inch out of the sleep nest, the emperor does not like to wake alone.  But dawn is for prowling.  No human language in the woods.

from Anne Carson’s Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (1995)

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I looked at all the trees and didn’t know what to do.

A box made out of leaves.
What else was in the woods? A heart, closing. Nevertheless.

Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.


I kept my mind on the moon. Cold moon, long nights moon.

From the landscape: a sense of scale.
From the dead: a sense of scale.

I turned my back on the story. A sense of superiority.
Everything casts a shadow.

Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.

Richard Siken’s “Detail of the Woods” (2011)