Authors /
Peter Cooley
Peter Cooley is poetry editor of Christianity and Literature. His 11th book of poetry is The One Certain Thing.
Wonderments
Our longest sun sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot ...
Gracelight
for David Rowan ...
Flamingos et al
When I say “I,” it is a supposed person. —Emily Dickinson...
About the House
Morning extends multiple beaks, multiple claws, Light on light, through the east window. I refuse them all, the whole aviary. ...
Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1437–1446
Light from my chosen star will come to me
in morning prayer, but only if I beg,
desperate like the unfortunate I met
yesterday morning, New Orleans 8 a.m....
Innumerabilities
Morning. I watch the windows come to light—
each according to ability or need or willingness—...
Down autumn
Down autumn, through the black trees blacker
after the rains, the trees that long to speak
but only utterances we lift from them
enough if they are broken as we are—...
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A strand of pearls
A single lamentation, I’m done?
No, just a different one, to name the rains,
tintinnabulation at the window,
the bent lament of morning’s radiance...
Barcarolle
The day I was confirmed, you turned to me,
sang out, while I stared straight ahead
through the sudden Wisconsin blizzard,...
Christo Morto, Giovanni Bellini, “Compianto sul Cristo morto”
Another morning for the death of God.
Another evening for the death of God.
Time, place, duration, season, all transposable,
the dead Christ hangs in agony, haloed,...