Then as Proof the Land by Phillip B. Williams


 
 
                        Because when I write “tree” I mean fire
of Autumn. I mean wind moves through the failing
leaves like a man the hue of bark, chased

                        into that height, into god-hood,
which is a silence. Every cypress
                                                stakes its claim in
what could be called idyll, making a fetish
of the land.

                        I am the question. Branches answer,
it would be our pleasure, then, as proof, nod closer.
 
 
 
 
Read “Aboutness: a conversation with Phillip B. Williams” here.
 
 
 
Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago, Illinois native. He is the author of the chapbooks Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc. 2011) and Burn (YesYes Books, 2013). He is a Cave Canem graduate and received scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference and a 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-, Callaloo, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry, The Southern Review, West Branch and others. Phillip is currently a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis and is working on his MFA in Creative Writing. He is the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry.