Clif Mason
Clif Mason, Poems
Clif Mason is a professor of English and Humanities at Bellevue University, in Bellevue, NE. He is the author of one full-length collection, Knocking the Stars Senseless (Stephen F. Austin State University Press), and three chapbooks: The Book of Night & Waking (winner of the Cathexis Northwest Press Chapbook Prize), Self-Portraits in Which I Do Not Appear (Finishing Line Press), and From the Dead Before (Lone Willow Press). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has won prizes from the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest (chosen by Marge Piercy), Writers’ Journal, Plainsongs, the Midwest Writers’ Conference, and the Academy of American Poets. He has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Rwanda, Africa..
Incendiary
I want a daybreak so bright
even the ghosts
will cast shadows,
& we will see a world
where we cannot tell
the dead
from the living.
Rivers will unfreeze
& begin to run.
The ice that held
them locked in winter’s jail
will crack & crumble,
become porous & rot.
Floe will give way to flow
& the whole
will be translated
into the language
of torrent—
muscled current—
a tongue it will master
in a matter of moments.
I want a daybreak so bright
all the nocturnal creatures
& birds
will despair of ever seeing
darkness again.
I want a daybreak so bright
even the dead will see it
& think
they have come back
to life,
come back
to take the chances
they didn’t dare to take
the first time
they had the choice.
Nightsong
There is earth on our fingers,
night dreaming in our bed.
Flowers begin their epic journey
through the dark,
& lilies & sweet William,
asters & impatiens
stir in the night breezes.
As we watch stars drag
down the onyx sky,
the moon skips, a slow stone,
across that blackest of waters.
We look for the owl
sewn into darkness' dusky cloak,
listen for raccoons slinking
down banksides
as chorus frogs sob their throbbing chant.
Moles sleep in their close,
humid tombs.
& the night air is dense
with catalpa's honey.
My love turns toward me
& trellised roses blossom
in her body,
dripping rainwater,
their red odor narcotic,
dousing earth with longing & dream,
memory & nightsong.