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Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr

Departure

To the trees, leaving
Came naturally—
A green extension
Of their being.
 
But for Adam and Eve
There was no
Precedent.
 
It meant
A tearing loose.
 
True, the mind
Might circle back
As memory—
What leash
Could hold it?
What wall
Could keep it out?
 
But to hear the gates
Clang shut behind you
Was to know the sound of final.

#AmericanWriters

Autres oeuvres par Gregory Orr...
Memorial Day

After our march from the Hudson t… of Cemetery Hill, we Boy Scouts… the sermons and hot sun while Girl… lolled among graves in the maple s… When members of the veterans’ hono…
Gathering the Bones Together

The deer carcass hangs from a raft… Wrapped in blankets, a boy keeps w… from a pile of loose hay. Then he… and dreams about a death that is c… Inside him, there are small bones
Trauma (Storm)

Hunkered down, nerve-numb, in the carnal hut, the cave of self, while outside a storm rages.
To Love

Grieving came from leaving Eden But leaving Eden was not grief— It was a lesson in lessening— How things, diminishing, Become more precious.
To Long

How beautiful they were, Adam thought— These beasts and birds; These tall grasses And flowering trees.
To Notice

In Eden, Adam Had been so busy Making up smug Nouns of dominion, He hadn’t watched
Two Lines from the Brothers Grimm

Now we must get up quickly, dress ourselves, and run away. Because it surrounds us, because they are coming with wolves on lea… because I stood just now at the wi…
Then

My parents and the parents of others were pillars of meat the sky’s blue roof rested on. Around them grew flowers with stalks so thin they bent
To Name

God wanted labels That would stick To fur or bark or leaf. Hadn’t he given Adam A tongue?
The River

I felt both pleasure and a shiver as we undressed on the slippery ba… and then plunged into the wild riv… I waded in; she entered as a diver… Watching her pale flanks slice the…
To Say/To Save

Eve sensed this Was something Words could do In a fallen world: Move a thing’s
The Pond

Snapping turtles in the pond eat b… and frogs. They do us no harm when… But early this spring two Canada… lingered, then built a nest. What… heard of, our neighbor feared: gos…
On a Highway East of Selma, Alabama

As the sheriff remarked: I had no business being there. He was right, but for the wrong reasons. Among that odd crew of volunteers from the North, I was by far the most inept and least ...
To Choose

God planned a static planet, With plants that bore No offspring—as if Acts had no consequence. But Eve was there to change
Self-Portrait at Twenty

I stood inside myself like a dead tree or a tower. I pulled the rope of braided hair and high above me



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