Main Street
You are a farmer in winter now.
Everyone is a farmer here.
The snow, the ice, the rock
that looks like a waterfall,
no books, no vegetables,
no fruit or sun-dripping
iridescent rain.
There will be no list
outside a courthouse door
giving your name or the hour
of your return to the field.
No announcement of
who is first or last or in the middle.
Be patient, dream
that the offices stay shut and the snow
will spin backwards in time.
Fanny Howe has received many awards, two National Endowment for the Arts, the Lenore Marshall Award, a Guggenheim, a California Commonwealth Award, and the Ruth Lilly Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation. She has written several novels, young adult fiction, essays and poetry. Her most recent collections are The Winter Sun and Come and See, both from Graywolf Press. She teaches at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The Martha’s Vineyard Times welcomes contributions to Poet’s Corner. Dan Waters, former poet laureate of West Tisbury, will select poems to be published here. Submissions should be directed to dan@indianhillpress.com.
