GINKGO

Poems by Kurt Mueller
Trade paperback: $15.00

D E S C R I P T I O N

A collection of poems in a unique “antiphonal” style that chronicles the journey we all walk through this life through observations of everything from the quotidian to the sublime. “The most interesting stuff is always/found between the lines, under the ink/buried in silence, lost in translation/caught in the throat.”

E X C E R P T

G I N K G O

The ginkgo tears itself apart
to lay a luminous carpet of gold.

Forgetting can be good
for the heart. Did I read that

Once prolific among dinosaurs,
now a living fossil—the oldest specimen

somewhere in a book?
I can’t remember.

alive is fourteen-hundred years old.
Notably, a half-dozen old gingkoes

Such a shame, to forget,
and yet so important

are among the only living things
to have survived the blast at Hiroshima.

for getting over things
that cannot be undone.

Though badly charred, all six trees
endured and are still alive today.

We sit by the river’s edge
to remember and lament.

We breeze by these trees every day
most often forgetting to marvel.

We walk to forget
and lighten the load.