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Richard Schiffman
Encouraged
Richard Schiffman
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I spent the morning hiding in a thicket where you couldn’t find me even if you tried. True, that world-meanderer, the breeze, sniffed me out. But its lips are sealed.
When I spoke by rote my old man woes, the backlit gasses trembled with consternation. You are as green as you want to be, they insisted, you are our own two-legged emanation.
My legs are bowed, I told the crow that had the sky entire to fly through. Caw, caw, he said, you are not dead, you can take flight where you are sitting.
The sun concurred, it lit my face. It burned away my hang-dog resignation. I wore that light of day all day until my nightly assignation.
No need to fear the night, night told. For rest assured, the stars are also suns that light the way from dusk till dawn. They’ve got your back, be bold.
Richard Schiffman is an environmental reporter, poet and author of two biographies based in New York City. His poems have appeared on the BBC and on NPR as well as in Alaska Quarterly, New Ohio Review, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily and other publications. His first poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.
