This is poetry moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
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Welcome to Poetry Moment.
On the journey to Christmas, you may find yourself traveling crucifixion streets and resurrection roads. Or so today’s poet, Robert Morrison Randolph suggests in excerpts from his poetic series “Shadow Poems.” He explains, I write them as “reachings. . . to make my limits more porous. These shadow-form poems, with few open spaces, reach to [God] in the dark.”
Robert Morrison Randolph has been a Fulbright scholar in both Finland and Greece. His publications include six poetry books, over 50 individual poems in the US and abroad, and numerous scholarly essays. He lives not far from the banks of the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania and teaches at Waynesburg University.
In “Shadow Poems,” mystical poet Robert Morrison Randolph weaves together shadow and light, nature and memory, dream and insight. Listen closely to hear a conversation with the Divine.
Here are two excerpts— “Shadow Poem 2” and “Shadow Poem 4”—by Robert Morrison Randolph.
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Shadow Poem 2
Sometimes there can be a wind so dry
it is full of crucifixion streets. I can feel it
circling me. On the other hand, resurrection roads
do not end until they turn gold. I want to wear
a black cape and walk those gold roads toward sunset,
every shadow a forgiveness. On those days
I could be a beautiful broken fountain last light
seeps falling through, never forgetting me.
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Shadow Poem 4
A heron flies from the hill pond,
slow winged, neck arced down, over the fence line.
The bird seems a dream unfolding. Maybe I should
carry a lantern and walk at night facing Jerusalem.
Maybe I should buy a child a pinto pony.
The bird looks like a pure river of hope.
It flies past a small cove of light in the oak leaves.
If there can be a rainbow in a violin string, it is this heron
flying alone. Maybe honey can drip from a dream.
I think of Mary holding her child on her lap.
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These poems are part of Robert Morrison Randolph’s collection The Glass Jar, published this year by Wipf & Stock.
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That was “Shadow Poem 2” and “Shadow Poem 4” by Robert Morrison Randolph. Thanks for listening.
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Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
