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Articles by James WIlson
The Highest Boughs
I’ve tried, then started trying once again, To see each thing just as it gives itself: The gleams of rain that pool in withered leaves; The blackened lump of stone amid the ashes. To listen, also, I have tried, as frogs Make their deep rolling churr beneath the call Of blackbirds, shrill and spiraling; to bear Unmoved the heavy, searching drone of bees.
James Matthew Wilson - The New Criterion
Sign into your account Become a subscriber Current subscribers may register for online access. James Matthew Wilson’s most recent book of poems is Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds (Word on Fire). Poetry: a special section The weight of Seamus Heaney Tucson hospital, waiting room T. S. Eliot’s still point Farewell to Berwyn On being ill On a box of rainbow sprinkles Passover
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Walter Osborne, In a Dublin Park, Light and Shade, ca. 1895, Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. The weight of Seamus Heaney Purchase this and other timeless New Criterion essays in our hard-copy reprint series. Within a decade of the publication of his first book, Death of a Naturalist, in 1966, Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) was proclaimed the most important Irish poet since William Butler Yeats. In retrospect, such praise sounds tepid.
“Tucson hospital, waiting room,” by James Matthew Wilson
The visitors outside the icu, After first greetings, don’t have much to say. And yet, an idle gazing on the view Of cars parked in the warming desert day, Waiting themselves in silence, will not do. And so, they speak of where their children live, Now that they’re grown with children of their own, Of one’s tenacity or initiative, A grandchild’s trophy, grades, or broken bone. No detail is too trivial to give. Their voices hide those distant beeps and hums That hint of purposes they only guess.
The Death of Cicero
A fluttering of wings and sudden pain Entered the guarded portals of his head Beneath its sheet, and woke him once again To find a ring of crows about his bed. The sunlight shimmered on the distant sea. The birds cawed, restless, as though one divine Had sent their feathered darkness as a sign That death approached and he must rise and flee. His servants pulled him through the postern gate To ride in shadows to a waiting ship, As if provision could slip free of fate.
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