Imminent Audition

David Morton

Slow-falling through this amber light,
The silver and uncertain rain
Bestows confusion on the sight
Wherein no common thing is plain,—

Wherein the oak and elm we see
Are less—and more—than what they were,
Not elm and oak now, but the Tree,
Most strangely chrismed and astir

With the near-utterance of the word
That trembles on the edge of sound,
The syllable we nearly heard,
And lost again, and have not found. . . .

 

University of Virginia Virginia Quarterly Review
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