International Poetry Competition
Grand Prize Winner: 2000
The Planet First Observed
by Marjorie Mir
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Home Pond
Of the nine,
it is the one blunt utterance
among the august, classic names,
that of a yeoman farmer, broad-
thick-
among the Roman gods,
knowing not much more than what to do
with where he stands,
the next job to be done.
He might have given himself the name,
joined as he is to the blessed stuff,
yielding or hard-
that feeds his flesh, takes his weight
and measure.
Patriarch or pater familias ?
The children, calling him by many names,
Dunia, Tierra, An Domhan, Chikyu,
the ones who revere,
the ones who take,
those who sit near him quietly,
are stunned, each time, by his rages,
breathe when they subside.
Those photographs taken from far off
show nothing that we recognize,
a face that could be hours old,
pure and closed away.
Amazement rises and falls back
to what we know:
birthright, homeplace, oldest forebear.
Of the nine,
most mortal, most alive.
Poetry Contest