THE HIDDEN MEADOW
by Richard Jones
The secret meadow lay between two hills,
with grass that rose up to a man’s chest.
When I’d lie down, I’d disappear completely.
The grass would bend down gently under me.
The way a child makes an angel in the snow,
I made sorrow’s shape. It was much like lying
in an open grave and looking up at heaven,
the clouds passing over, so far up and distant.
It seemed there was nothing else in the world,
just the tall grass bowing and bending, golden
in the sunlight, the meadow ready for the sickle,
every tall blade pointing upward, the distant
song of a few high white clouds in the pale sky
just enough to pull me through the sunny day.
_____________________________________________________
Richard Jones’s new book, Stranger on Earth, is forthcoming
from Copper Canyon Press in 2018. Editor of Poetry East and
its many anthologies—including Paris, Origins, and Bliss—Jones
also edits the free worldwide poetry app, “The Poet’s Almanac.”
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2017 Next page ►
The secret meadow lay between two hills,
with grass that rose up to a man’s chest.
When I’d lie down, I’d disappear completely.
The grass would bend down gently under me.
The way a child makes an angel in the snow,
I made sorrow’s shape. It was much like lying
in an open grave and looking up at heaven,
the clouds passing over, so far up and distant.
It seemed there was nothing else in the world,
just the tall grass bowing and bending, golden
in the sunlight, the meadow ready for the sickle,
every tall blade pointing upward, the distant
song of a few high white clouds in the pale sky
just enough to pull me through the sunny day.
_____________________________________________________
Richard Jones’s new book, Stranger on Earth, is forthcoming
from Copper Canyon Press in 2018. Editor of Poetry East and
its many anthologies—including Paris, Origins, and Bliss—Jones
also edits the free worldwide poetry app, “The Poet’s Almanac.”
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2017 Next page ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 12, Number 2
(Fall 2017)
Copyright © 2017
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 12, Number 2
(Fall 2017)
Copyright © 2017
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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