Another Ash Wednesday

Abstract

Another Ash Wednesday Eric Potter (bio) Do we really needanother reminderour days are like grassthat though we may flourishlike flowers in the fieldwe'll be gone soon enoughthe world closing over uslike waves over the placewhere a ship was sunk? Do we really needto be taught to numberour days, to numberthe hairs on our headsour dead and our dreamsall the junked carsand run-down barnswith their empty windowsthrough which swallows flitfrom dark to lightto dark again? We're already obsessedwith brevity, alreadycounting downto extinction, not likethe passenger pigeon, perhaps,but personal and certain,such knowledgemothering nothing. [End Page 130] Why not some good newsfor a change? Why notthat fabulous silver lining?Haven't we had enoughof sun-starved dayswhere the faithless snowsifts down like ash? There comes a pointwhen the returning birdsresume their singingin the heedless voicesof those whose careshave been abandonedlike an old barnwhere they could buildtheir grassy nests,singing no matterthe cold, no matterthe piles of snowadrift like icebergson the indifferent lawns. There comes a pointfor turning and beingturned, the way a flowerfollows the sun's progress,gratefully unfolding itselfuntil the night,or the way a magnetsubtly draws a rosefrom the iron dust. [End Page 131] Eric Potter Eric Potter is a professor of English at Grove City College (PA) where he teaches courses in poetry and American literature. His poems have appeared in such journals as 32 Poems, The Midwest Quarterly, and The Christian Century. He has published two chapbooks and a full-length collection, Things Not Seen. potterea@gcc.edu. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press