James Miller

WRITING THROUGH LE GUIN

—after A Wizard of Earthsea

I saw no door that night,
that one night.

All sails sank to ashes,
forty oars feasting
on the waves.

The long rain shone steady
on the salt, then set out
across the island. 

Give me real things
to wrap myself in:

whale-gut fallows, seals
and their leaf-brown pups, hillroots
gloomed for opal’s sake.

I had forgotten how few
and short were the lines. Go on,
and do your work.

There is no blinding
beyond.

James Miller is a native of Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Sweet Tree Review, Cold Mountain Review, The Maine Review, Lullwater Review, Lunch Ticket, Gravel, Main Street Rag, Verdad, Juked, The Write Launch, The Shore, Menacing Hedge, Califragile, Meat for Tea, Plainsongs, The Atlanta Review, and elsewhere.