77. American Life in Poetry: Column 439

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Here’s a fine poem about the stages of grief by Helen T. Glenn, who lives in Florida.

Noguchi’s Fountain

The release of water in the base
so controlled that the surface tension,
tabletop of stability, a mirror,
remains unbroken. Moisture seeps
down polished basalt sides.

This is how I grieve, barely
enough to dampen river stones,
until fibers in my husband’s
tweed jacket brush my fingers
as I fold it into a box. How close
the whirlpool under my feet.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Helen T. Glenn, and reprinted from the Nimrod International Journal, Vol. 56, no. 1, 2012, by permission of Helen T. Glenn and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.