We lay out our own dark end,
guilt, and the happiness of guilt.
God never enters into it, nor
Do his pale hands and pale wings,
angel of the time he has become.
The wind doesn’t blow in the soul,
so no boat there for passage.
Half-paths of the half-moon, then,
To walk up and down in the forest,
to walk hard in the bright places.
Charles Wright’s many awards include the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His recent books include Caribou (FSG, 2014), Littlefoot (FSG, 2007), and Scar Tissue (FSG, 2006), and he was the guest editor of the 2008 edition of The Best American Poetry. He is the emeritus Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia. In 1993, he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. In 2014, he was named Poet Laureate.
