Blackbird Archive
← v13n1, Spring 2014
Poetry · Volume 13, Number 1

Of Earth

F. Daniel Rzicznek

Building a fire yesterday it

occurred to me to be more careful

with my hands: balance the new log

just so and the flames teethe.

~

The sun hovers downward—unsteady.

A young man steps from behind a curtain—

just starts firing. Asleep

inside sleep, I find myself wishing . . .

A warming day of rain pushing snow

~

Every forest began as a fire.

natureviolencespirituality
F. Daniel Rzicznek

F. Daniel Rzicznek is the author of two poetry collections, Divination Machine (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2009) and Neck of the World (Utah State University Press, 2007), as well as two chapbooks, Vine River Hermitage (Cooper Dillon Books, 2011) and Cloud Tablets (Kent State University Press, 2006). His poetry has appeared in Boston Review , The New Republic , Orion , Mississippi Review , Hotel Amerika , and Shenandoah . Rzicznek teaches writing at Bowling Green State University and is coeditor (with Gary L. McDowell) of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010). Photo by F. Daniel Rzicznek