Out of our Elements

Let us speak simple to one another
with the sound of our ancestors
and the lazy lineage of history

Let us listen to prized inflections
and marvel at the stubborness of time
for the past is everywhere

Glowing days are followed by pale nights
and since no one here is guaranteed heaven
our apples fall to the warm promise of earth

We meet out of our elements
spinning substance to substance
one strand at a time

and our time is all time
with the newness of every moment
with slow resolutions

We are foster children of silence
searching for a clear tone
sustained for one long measure

past dissonance
into melodic passages
until the jet sluice of night

___ -- Ruth Daigon



Ruth Daigon edited Poets On: for 20 years. Her poems have been widely published: Shenandoah, Negative Capability, Poet & Critic, Kansas Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly, Atlanta Review, Poet Lore and Tikkun, while Internet "E" zines include Ariga, Crania, Cross Connect, Zuzu's Petals, Switched On Gutenberg, Recursive Angel and Mudlark. She also appeared as Poet-Of-The-Month on The University of Chile's Pares Cum Paribus (an "E" chapbook in English and Spanish), has published chapbooks on Web Del Sol and the Alsop Review. Her poetry collection "Between One Future and the Next" (Papier-Mache Press was published in 1995. Gale Research included her autobiography in their Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, 1997. Daigon's poetry awards are "The Eve Of St. Agnes",1993 and 1994 (Negative Capability) "The Ann Stanford Poetry Prize", 1997 (University of Southern California Anthology). Her new poetry anthology (fifth hard copy) is "The Moon Inside" (Gravity/Newton's Baby Press) December 1999.