Jenny Argante’s latest collection is Working in the Cracks Between (Oceanbooks, 2012.) She is a published writer and professional editor who created and taught on the Waiariki Institute of Technology’s online Diploma in Creative Writing for seven years. She is now engaged with preparing Poetivity: How to Read and Write Poetry for publication later this year.
Grounded
To measure the sun's height
you don't need to be
a bird, a probe, or
winged Icarus failing to scope
red-hot perplexity,
fallen to zero
Do as the wise men do
who nightly study stars,
the moon's cold certainties
emerging, pale, red-eyed,
to calculate sun's distance
where it strides:
meaning determined
with both feet on the ground.
simplicity
the cut face of the quarry
the sharp upswell of hill
the Norfolk
across the bordering rill
the palimpsest of unleaved trees
as ghostly as a dream
beside the road the railway track
beside the track a stream
beside the stream a barricade
of boulders, rock and scree
beyond unseen, beneath unknown
experienced in me
beside the rock, the ripening range
that draws the upward eye
high snow, low cloud and a pale moon
against a leaden sky