Poetry by J Matthew Porter

Kimmo Räisänen CC




gravity

i have no ascendancy 
over the space between
the live oak as it topples
in slow motion and the
dirt awaiting impact.

this is just how it works.
the angle closing, grief
in the pitching.

i imagine god as an animal's
ghost. a dead deer in a black
forest, still foraging, hooves 
scarring the red clay underfoot.
no one's ever seen him whole,
but maybe he's there, the
irregular white mist dissipating
and rising.

it's why my daughter remains
fascinated by gravity. we're 
technically looking down at the 
sky, not up, she says. if you don't
understand this, you'll never be 
ready to receive the gift of always 
falling but never hitting the ground.





we all return to familiar rivers

i'll do my best to decorate 
the coming spring with 
everything i can recollect.
i'll watch the hibernal crown
of the sun wreathe the sky
with a bronze chaplet of 
february flame so bright
it exiles the iris. winter 
stars are scars on the 
back of angels' throats. 
your pulse is nothing 
more than the ancestral 
echoes of your past lives
returning to a familiar
river. when your bones 
crack, remember that 
our bodies are archives
of dust, assemblages 
of elation, pink neon, woe.
i've learned to translate the 
whispers of murmuring
waters as invitations from
ghosts roaming a forest 
i can never see, but real,
as green as a season of
moss snagged on a brace
of antlers cutting through the fog.

​

J Matthew Porter is a landscape designer living and working in Birmingham, Alabama. His poetry has been feature most recently online by Eunoia Review.

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