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Someday, If I Am Lucky
I will be survived by this open acre
ringed by cedars and firs, this
meadow collecting yellow light,
where today, alive, I linger
in the listening, housed in a shape
capable of such ordinary song. I wish
to thank the minerals in my bones
and all this borrowed epiphany, all this
endless ache linking arms with sorrow.
May many tomorrows nest
in such green valleys. May we all
accept the ground we will become.
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Matthew Nienow is the author of the recently released collection, If Nothing, as well as House of Water (2016), both from Alice James Books. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry, and has been recognized with fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington, with his wife and sons, where he works as a mental health counselor.
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Vincent van Gogh, A Meadow in the Mountains, Le Mas de Saint-Paul, 1889, oil on canvas.