American Life in Poetry: Column 194

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Father and child doing a little math homework together; it's an everyday occurrence, but here, Russell Libby, a poet who writes from Three Sisters Farm in central Maine, presents it in a way that makes it feel deep and magical.

Applied Geometry

Applied geometry,

measuring the height

of a pine from

like triangles,

Rosa's shadow stretches

seven paces in

low-slanting light of

late Christmas afternoon.

One hundred thirty nine steps

up the hill until the sun is

finally caught at the top of the tree,

let's see,

twenty to one,

one hundred feet plus a few to adjust

for climbing uphill,

and her hands barely reach mine

as we encircle the trunk,

almost eleven feet around.

Back to the lumber tables.

That one tree might make

three thousand feet of boards

if our hearts could stand

the sound of its fall.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Russell Libby, whose most recent book is "Balance: A Late Pastoral," Blackberry Press, 2007. Reprinted from "HeartLodge," Vol. III, Summer 2007, by permission of Russell Libby. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation.  The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.  We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. 

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