Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 110, Volume 22 Number 6, July - August 1996.

Six Poems Adam Schwartzman


Realworld
It was the very first Sunday
when light spread in pleats, and at ankle-height
night hurried out
like the shadows cast under the first settler's feet.

*

It came again the next day. It intimated
tomorrow: a place in time for things to happen,
for evening and morning,
for a fair working week, for the stumbling missionary

to find fresh water, the errant chief
to be eaten by a crocodile: and outside a place
where the rest would stay real:
for thoughts of the sullen boy selling cassava,

speculation of stricken daughters, a calling place,
a destination, a store house,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image