Authors /
Peter Cooley
Peter Cooley is poetry editor of Christianity and Literature. His 11th book of poetry is The One Certain Thing.
Flamingos et al
When I say “I,” it is a supposed person. —Emily Dickinson...
September 19, 2023
About the House
Morning extends multiple beaks, multiple claws, Light on light, through the east window. I refuse them all, the whole aviary. ...
July 17, 2023
Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1437–1446
Light from my chosen star will come to me
in morning prayer, but only if I beg,
desperate like the unfortunate I met
yesterday morning, New Orleans 8 a.m....
May 18, 2022
Counting down
Everyone should write a spring poem, Louise Gluck...
April 8, 2022
The agony in the garden
Raphael, Italian (Umbrian) 1483–1520, tempera and oil on wood...
March 22, 2022
Innumerabilities
Morning. I watch the windows come to light—
each according to ability or need or willingness—...
January 5, 2022
Down autumn
Down autumn, through the black trees blacker
after the rains, the trees that long to speak
but only utterances we lift from them
enough if they are broken as we are—...
September 29, 2021
A strand of pearls
A single lamentation, I’m done?
No, just a different one, to name the rains,
tintinnabulation at the window,
the bent lament of morning’s radiance...
January 23, 2020
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Barcarolle
The day I was confirmed, you turned to me,
sang out, while I stared straight ahead
through the sudden Wisconsin blizzard,...
August 13, 2019
Christo Morto, Giovanni Bellini, “Compianto sul Cristo morto”
Another morning for the death of God.
Another evening for the death of God.
Time, place, duration, season, all transposable,
the dead Christ hangs in agony, haloed,...
March 22, 2018
Without the guidance of the noonday stars
Where will I be when I confront the darkthe stars have lived in for millennia?I’m no ascetic, I love what I callearthly paradise, the vegetable stand...
June 1, 2016