New on Poetry

Bombing of Poems Opening Program Hardop!

Poem

Heather McHugh

Side by side

Original language

LEAF LITTER ON ROCK FACE

LEAF LITTER ON ROCK FACE

LEAF LITTER ON ROCK FACE

Things are not
unmoving (or else what

is ing inside them for?)
The things once-living

fall on the never-living all
the more movingly for the eye

that passes over them.
The wind wells up

to spill a trail
of onces off the nevers,

take opaque from eye
to mind, or near it—

every rocking takes
some leaving to

a stonish spirit.

© 2007, Heather McHugh
From: Poetry, Vol. 191, No. 2, November
Publisher: Poetry, Chicago

Heather McHugh

Heather McHugh

(United States of America, 1948)

Heather McHugh’s work is noted for its rhetorical gestures, sharp puns and interest in the materials of language itself – her self-described determination is “to follow every surge of language, every scrap and flotsam”. Describing her work in the Boston Review, poet and critic Richard Howard alleged that “most of McHugh’s poems end in a spurt, as they proceed in a slather, of just such astonish...

Countries

Discover other poems and poets from United States of America

Poems Poets

Languages

Discover other poems and poets in English

Poems Poets

Poems

Poems of Heather McHugh

LEAF LITTER ON ROCK FACE

PHILSOPHER ORDERS CRISPY PORK

NOT TO BE DWELLED ON

SPACE BAR

ELEVATED

HALF BORDER, HALF LAB

REMAINS TO BE SEEN

DARK VIEW

MYRRHA TO THE SOURCE

FROM THE TOWER

Close

LEAF LITTER ON ROCK FACE

Things are not
unmoving (or else what

is ing inside them for?)
The things once-living

fall on the never-living all
the more movingly for the eye

that passes over them.
The wind wells up

to spill a trail
of onces off the nevers,

take opaque from eye
to mind, or near it—

every rocking takes
some leaving to

a stonish spirit.

From: Poetry, Vol. 191, No. 2, November

LEAF LITTER ON ROCK FACE

Sponsors