April 8, 2020

The Way We Love Something Small

Kimberly Blaeser

The translucent claws of newborn mice

this pearl cast of color,

the barely perceptible

like a ghosted threshold of being:

here not here.

The single breath we hold

on the thinnest verge of sight:

not there there.

A curve nearly naked

an arc of almost,

a wisp of becoming

a wand—

tiny enough to change me.

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“This poem comes from a series of similar pieces all called ‘The Way We Love Something Small,’ pieces grounded in an understanding of poetry as an act of attention. Each poem focuses on those heightened moments common to our experience in which a place, sound, personal exchange, natural creatures, even an object suddenly resonates or becomes transformative. While rescuing a newborn mouse, I saw for the first time the pup’s delicate, nearly invisible claws, and writing of that moment illuminated it. Because the poems arise from ‘small’ epiphanies, I use an airy, slight form. I see the pieces in this series as aspiring to an impact similar to haiku: simultaneously grounded in image and allusive, they invite a re-seeing of what is before us.”
—Kimberly Blaeser

Kimberly Blaeser’s most recent collection of poetry is Copper Yearning (Holy Cow! Press, 2019). The former Wisconsin poet laureate, Blaeser is an MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and a professor of English and Indigenous studies at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She lives in rural Lyons Township, Wisconsin.

Copper Yearning
(Holy Cow! Press, 2019)

Shelter in Poems

In response to a growing need for poetry during this uncertain time, we invite you to share poems from our Poets.org collection that help to find courage, solace, and actionable energy. Select responses will be featured in a special Shelter in Poems newsletter over the next several weeks.

“Anything Can Happen” by Seamus Heaney

read more

“Still Life with Ladder” by Susan Rich

read more

Thanks to Joy Harjo, United States Poet Laureate and author of An American Sunrise (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read an extended Q&A about Harjo’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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"The Way We Love Something Small" by Kimberly Blaeser

The Way We Love Something Small

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast

Shelter in Poems

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