ANTHONY S. ABBOTT



official author website

New & Selected Poems 1989 - 2009


ISBN-978-0-9789342-7-9

Lorimer Press



$18.95
Buy the book at www.lorimerpress.com




 

"Ah, now, here's a poet, one who knows that life is lived in the past as much as the present; one who, seemingly without creed, is formed by his religious tradition. Most often in faux blank verse paragraphs or unrhymed quatrains, these are poems that revive the soul." --Ray Olson, Booklist Starred Review



New & Selected Poems 1989 - 2009 offers Anthony Abbott's newest work along with the best known and most beloved poems of the past three decades.


AFTER VESPERS

you were kneeling
on the stone floor
of the stone church

your elbows propped
on the wooden rail
your eyes closed

in prayer.  I came
to you and knelt.
You did not look up

but you knew I was there.
We did not need to speak.
I know the words

of your prayers and you
know mine.  Silence
held us.  Light shifted.

The smell of incense
and candles lingered
from vespers.

All the others had
departed.  Only the red
light of the sacrament

still burned and the streetlight
beyond the open door
where I waited yesterday

and the day before.