POETRY
NOVEMBER 2017
This Year
by JESS WILLIARD
Utmost, utmost the geese insist.
It embarrasses me to hear it.
Another season goes
purpling across the firmament.
This year has the skies
of a world so courageous
it embarrasses me
to walk calmly along a day
and see promises through
to their animal importance.
I have appointments on the earth.
It embarrasses me not to try.
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Jess Williard
Jess Williard's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Third Coast, North American Review, Colorado Review, Southern Humanities Review, Barrow Street, Lake Effect, The New Orleans Review, Sycamore Review, Bayou Magazine, Iron Horse Literary Review, Oxford Poetry, and other journals. Originally from Wisconsin, he now lives in Atlanta where he is a doctoral candidate at Georgia State University.