poem generous light

"Mitch Manning is the author of a book of poems, city of water (Arrowsmith, 2019). He’s taught poetry in central China and his poems have been read in Basra, southern Iraq as part of the Boston to Basra Project. He teaches in the English and Labor Studies programs at UMass Boston. More info can be found at mitchmanning.info."

Generous Light, Gloucester

Red cockscomb and rainbow dahlias

Behind the sea widow’s stone memorial,

Under the golden owl at dusk

The purple sky and moon,

On the magic man’s porch

Those who built the zendo

And the phenomenologists meet

Where ‘within remains within’

In the eternal song of poems

The utmost mantras that continue

In vibration beyond their own energetic makings

All comes together in the fading radiance

Of what summer was, and is now,

The sky, a painting hung above

Rotational earth and motorcycle drone,

A magical time at the intersection

Of all our living, remembering, being

Actualizing, still