Christianity

 

To bleach away the magic

from man and nature

is to turn clay into stone,

yet even the pressure of death

turning life black as coal

can bring forth light.

Then too, given time,

the philosopher’s stone man appear and

under gifted hand and finest tools

the clay shall then have the magic

to break the light into colors,

and form the colors into a light

that shall drive back the shadows

and draw out the truth from the darkness.

 

published in American Collegiate Poets, Spring, 1979.

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Just a quick comment of “Vanity Presses”.  I imagine this does sort of count as a publication, it is in my portfolio towards the back.  I do not think of it as a particularly good poem, but it is gathering dust on some library shelf someplace and will never see the light of day again.   The company that published it, International Publications, out of LA, CA expects to make money off of people buying this volume to give to friends and relatives, that sort of thing.  I doubt that anybody else in the academic or literary community has ever seen it.  This is not a publication that is going to get a writer any exposure.