The Sunday Poet: William Doreski

Poet William Doreski

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has published three critical studies. His poetry has appeared in many journals. He has taught writing and literature at Emerson, Goddard, Boston University, and Keene State College. His new poetry collection is A Black River, A Dark Fall (Splash of Red, 2018).

Drafts of Autumn

The drafts of autumn arrive,

trailing scraps of tropical storm

from the Gulf where small cities

have curdled along the shore.

You want to hang out laundry

for the last sun-dry of the year,

but the sun has lost its fervor

for casting lattice-works of shade,

and has stayed in bed this morning,

defying custom and science.

We should pack a lunch and drive

to that museum where Homer’s

seascapes open depths greater

than we experience in life.

Or we should stroll by a lake

inlaid with cloud mosaics

too complex for the eye to parse.

The logic of bedrock underlies

everything we do or don’t do

and leaves us with chilly mouths.

The drafts, blown by angels

or devils, from west or north,

flutter the most fragile tissues

even if they’re framed behind glass.

Do you want to say home and ply

the layers of indecencies

to learn their obtuse language?

We still have the textbook shelved

where we left off reading halfway

from the Indus and Yellow rivers.

Not all the rag or scrap or tatters

in our world can stifle drafts

blown from such tangential distance.

We might as well accept the logic

of painting the sea in motion

and drink from those cloudy lakes

until we’re sated enough to drift

away on the loss of our shadows

and become the landscapes we admire.