Rivers Contain Silence
Ten thousand rivers,
one flowing atop the other,
each emptying into its own emptiness:
this is the book of my life.
Leverage
What stands in the mind
as impediments I can’t get hands to lift.
It keeps words from wedging
under the heft of the world.
Tributaries
Rivers run high through air,
through blood, currents
where the material did not
and does not touch.
Seeing Through the Rain
The problem of rain—seeing phenomenon
as beautiful or awful. Either way
each falling drop is full of the flight of birds.
Open Wing, Clinging Claw
It takes two to take to the sky.
Alighting in shadow hides the light
that flight knows. Words, like myths,
work in wheels: they hover, they plunge.
Edward A. Dougherty
Edward A. Dougherty is the author of 11 collections of poetry, including Grace Street (a sequence of 12 poems) and 10048 (about the World Trade Center and 9/11). His latest title is a collection of essays called Journey Work: Crafting a Life of Poetry & Spirit. He says he discovered emblems after a long interest in Asian calligraphy and landscape paintings, which often blended the verbal and visual arts. His emblems have been displayed at the Atrium Gallery and the Word & Image Gallery.
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