Tag: Now

Now, Morning by Gary Fincke

~ ONE ART ~ 3 Comments

Now, Morning

Among a thousand tourists, three-deep
And more along the shore of Key West,
We watch the winter sun perform, setting
At the advertised time while someone
Plays Amazing Grace on bagpipes,
Plaintive for a few dollars and change.
Those closest surround us within such
Solemnity that my wife says the bagpipes
Are wailing Taps as if the sun were
A flag being lowered like a coffin.

Just now, eyes forward, everyone agrees
Upon the vanishing point, applauding
As if, without our acknowledged awe,
The sun will refuse tomorrow, dissolving
Us with darkness in this low-lying place
That the brochure says is paradise,
The sky clear, the water, in the direction
We are facing, appearing endless.

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Gary Fincke’s latest collection is The Necessary Going On: Selected Poems 1980-2025 (Press 53, 2025). His most recent collection of new poems is For Now, We Have Been Spared (Slant Books, 2025).

Now by Julia Caroline Knowlton

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Now

Quick as a key turn or July clouds
releasing downpours, I suddenly
loved you more as you admired

aloud the word maintenant – “now” –
mentioning its literal meaning:
holding a hand. Fifty years of French

and I had never picked that lock.
Now the present folds me
in its have and hold vow,

future pressed to past, palm
to warm palm. Every word my own
swollen cloud, shaped like a clock.

*

Julia Caroline Knowlton is a Professor of French and Creative Writing at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. She has won two separate Georgia Author of the Year awards for her poetry. Her latest volume of poetry is a children’s book. She lives in Atlanta and Paris.