November 2017
/NOT AS ONE who knows the ground
by Joan Houlihan
NOT AS ONE who knows the ground
but woken to a standing,
Ay rose and held as bird would hold
for want of weather, flight.
Far, the hard light grew.
The us were down in sleep.
Fire blacked away.
None would know me
colding there. Ay stood and stept
as calf that has no mother-side,
as a weak thing made, then fell
and lay in a smaller place to wait.
Where a noise had been
Ay let a quiet in.
From Ay, Tupelo Press, 2014
Joan Houlihan is the author of five books of poetry including Shadow-feast, forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2018. Her other books are: Ay (2014), The Us (2009), The Mending Worm, winner of the 2005 Green Rose Award from New Issues Press and Hand-Held Executions: Poems & Essays (2003). She has taught at Columbia University, Emerson College and Smith College and serves on the faculty of Lesley University’s Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is also Professor of Practice in Poetry at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Houlihan founded and directs the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.