At Hald Hovedgaard Estate-1729 — Blackbird Archive

← v10n1, Spring 2011

The stone steps lead to water

and the steps go down and in.

The master builder made it

so the stairs continue farther

than is needed, farther down

into the lake, climbed by only fish

and grazed in lightness by the feet

of swimmers. The forest oaks grew

up, fell down, have hollowed out.

whose name I have forgotten,

smiling from his portrait, as if

he heralds a new age of optimism.

place history nature

David Keplinger

David Keplinger is the author of three books: The Prayers of Others (2006), winner of the 2007 Colorado Book Award, and The Clearing (2005), both from New Issues Poetry & Prose, as well as The Rose Inside: Poems (Truman State University Press, 1999), chosen by Mary Oliver for the T.S. Eliot Prize of that press. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is also the author of World Cut with Crooked Scissors (New Issues, 2007), which he co-translated with Danish poet Carsten Rene Nielsen. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Florida Review, AGNI, Nimrod, and Minnesota Review. He currently teaches at American University in Washington, D.C.