Scott Hightower

Scott Hightower
 
AT MILLY-LA-FORET
 
These waters are not for everyone; dark depths
not giving themselves up to the sunlight or flowers.
A pair of Cocteau’s sphinxes crouches
on either side of the modest steps, just paces
from the moat. Beautiful September countryside;
garden full of sunlight and flowers. Homme du
monde. Small town life after all. Hot crunchy
gravel. On this side, memories, visions, and dreams are
not the same thing. Oh, to be immersed
in a consuming element. I’m familiar
with rehearsal, practice, and transport;
I’ve got the death spiral down. But for now,
I want to be artfully lifted up (like a ship’s
masthead) gracefully gliding across
a lawn, a sea, an expanse of ice.
 
 
 
Scott Hightower is the author of five collections of poetry, including Part of the Bargain, (which received Copper Canyon Press’s 2004 Hayden Carruth Award), Self-evident (Barrow Street Press, 2013) and Hontanares (Devenir, 2013), an English/Spanish bi-lingual collection with Spanish translator Natalia Cabajosa. In 2008, Hightower’s translations garnered a prestigious Barnstone Translation Prize. He lives and works in New York, and sojourns in Spain.