Postlude: Poetry by Rita Dove

Rita Dove is the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing in the Department of English at the University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Ms. Dove was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993-95, the Virginia Poet Laureate from 2004-06, and the 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner for her book Thomas and Beulah. In addition to having received numerous honors, awards, and recognitions, Ms. Dove holds 29 honorary doctorates from higher learning institutions.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Lifetime Learning will feature poems throughout April written by UVA faculty.

Postlude                                                   

            Stay by the hearth, little cricket.
                                             Cendrillon 

You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.
 

Out of sight, I’m merely an annoyance,
one slim, obstinate wrinkle in night’s
deepening trance. When sleep fails,
 

you wish me shushed and back in my hole.
As usual, you’re not listening: Time stops
only if you stop long enough to hear it
 

passing. This is my business:
I’ve got ten weeks left to croon through.                                              
What you hear is a lifetime of song.        

Source: 

Playlist for the Apocalypse. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York.

Copyright © 2021 by Rita Dove. Reprint by permission of author.