Five Penances: Penance III

Lisa Russ Spaar is a Professor of English and Creative Writing in UVA's Department of English in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Professor Spaar's poetry collections include Vanitas, Rough; Satin Cash; and Blue Venus. Her recent novel is Paradise Close. She has edited several anthologies and books of essays, including the recent Monticello in Mind: Fifty Contemporary Poems on Jefferson. Her most recent collection of poetry is entitled, Madrigalia:  New & Selected Poems. Professor Spaar is pairing her five-part series with her former UVA art professor, Richard Crozier.

Five Penances: Penance III

Penance III

An early April wind scours

this late afternoon with its annual exposé,

twisting and cuffing a red paper lantern

hung outside the Vietnamese noodle shop.

A runnel from the broken gutter above

taps   taps   against its tissued drum

with a maddeningly slow-motion, lyric clarity,

wresting into itself all of the weak, returning light,

spotting the patch of shoveled snow beneath

with drops of blood.  I kick through

the sooty slush, trailing the takeout window

and its sputtering scarf of heat and garlic

behind me.  O world that forces joy

upon us, who seemed made for sorrow.

©  Lisa Russ Spaar

From Blue Venus (Persea Books, 2004)