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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GRANGER'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE, by GEORGE ADDISON SCARBROUGH Poet's Biography First Line: On the day I was gone to town / to get my birth approved Subject(s): Birth; Child Birth; Midwifery | |||
On the day I was gone to town to get my birth approved (whatever a paper approves after nearly forty years), the new calf in the meadow got to his feet for the first time, and fell to earth again. The empty cow, too hungry to eat grass, stared at the place where the calf had fallen, which was the same place he had fallen before. She did not approach him. He had already been licked into shape. She merely changed ends in a wide circle to see him better. On the hill, from a young hickory, whose buds were suddenly all thumbs, a crow cawed down a plea for a bite of the afterbirth -- juicy sweetbread the cow now so lazily contemplated. On the rock bench between the meadow and the hill, in the few hours I was gone, hard, green berries turned from sour, lightless knots into strings of living jewels, so redly lucent the stones were black shadows in the flesh. Above the berries purple vetch waved. Below them, clean daisies nodded. On the day I went to town to prove my likelihood, the whole farm embossed itself as for a wedding. I know this was so, for as I returned around the hill, the calf rose a second time and began to dance. http://www.wlu.edu/~shenano | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHY I AM AFRAID OF TURNING THE PAGE by CATE MARVIN ACCIDENTS OF BIRTH by WILLIAM MEREDITH ONE FOR ALL NEWBORNS by THYLIAS MOSS CURRICULUM VITAE by LISEL MUELLER FOUND IN THE CABBAGE PATCH by LISEL MUELLER AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER; FOR SEAMAS HEANEY by GEORGE ADDISON SCARBROUGH |
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