It is enough for me as a reader that a poem take from life a single moment and hold it up for me to look at. There need not be anything sensational or unusual or peculiar about that moment, but somehow, by directing my attention to it, our attention to it, the poet bathes it in the light of the remarkable. Here is a poem like this by Carolyn Miller, who lives in San Francisco.

The World as It is

No ladders, no descending angels, no
voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky – only
water rising and falling in breathing
springs
and seeping up through limestone,
aquifers filling
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie
grass
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans.
Only
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion
rising sideways,
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a
great firefly,
Venus trembling and faceted in the
west – and the moon,
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, 
brimming
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly,
deliberately,
wobbling slightly, while far below, the
faithful sea
rises up and follows.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Carolyn Miller, from her most recent book of poems, Light, Moving, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2009.