11th Annual Juried Reading Finalist

Andrew Grace of Champaign, Illinois

Andrew Grace was born and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. He did his undergraduate work at Kenyon College and is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis. His first book of poetry, A Belonging Field, was published by Salt Publishing. His poems have appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Boston Review and Iowa Review. He is the recipient of an Academy of American Poet's Prize and the Southern Poetry Review's 2003 Guy Owen Prize. He is currently at work on his second collection of poems.

Leopardi on Sunday

Giacomo, listen: there is silence cold as my dead spruce in the soft rain
of Sunday, silence as an answer to an unspoken wish, after writing for what
feels like the first time something other than a rough draft of grief,

to walk the brim of some beauty: Heaven, or, at least, to watch
the last of a pear-colored light course through the oleander
before darkness arcs over this simple house I love.

The reply for us (That's human life for you, you knew) is No.
There are only unfixed years left, goat decades, decades of blood
as weak as tea. Giacomo, tonight there is no relief, save you telling us

there can be none. I could start over: Outside, the acacias flex
their thorns in the night, quick tongues of eucalyptus, but it is too late.
It's Sunday; worship what you can. Grief is its own reward.

© 2005 The Poetry Center of Chicago
All Rights Revert Back to the Author Upon Publication.
No Portion of this poem may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.