Bluebird Madrigal

Lisa Russ Spaar

Bell’s peal made visible, scrap of sky
foreign as ice caves in a foreign country,or the self one seeks, fingering a postcard,
its crenellated deeps, exotic stamps, hard-copy post, outmoded as paraffin or ink,
odor of summer, or holy sands of caliche drink –,Secret bridegroom, thou knowest my wound.
And address it with your ten thousand bruisesas the crocus blade refuses crush of snow.
True, a curtain drops.  But desire’s long.  O,sail, then, skiff, wherry, ketch, my one and only
ever made for me.  Beyond logic, reason, history,fly.  Larkspur traveling into cloud-scree.
“Here” is just a part of the soul your body shows to me.

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Lisa Russ Spaar is the author of seven books of poetry and a collection of essays, and the editor of the three poetry anthologies. For her commentary and columns on poetry, which appear regularly in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, she was a 2014 finalist for the National Book Circle Critics Award for Excellence in Reviewing. Other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Award, the Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry, and the Library of Virginia Award for Poetry. She is currently Horace W. Goldsmith NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia, where she is Professor of English and Creative Writing.

Shenandoah

Fall 2017

Lexington, Virginia

The Washington and Lee University Review

Editor: R. T. Smith

After sixty years of publishing print editions filled with memorable writing, Washington and Lee’s Shenandoah has gone online, where we will continue to feature work displaying passionate understanding, formal accomplishment and serious mischief.

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