Poetry
Inness
A poem in response to George Inness
By Peter Gizzi
George Inness, Landscape, Sunset, ca. 1887–89 © Edward B. Butler Collection. Courtesy Art Institute Chicago
look at this light the light said
what could it mean
a star gone to silence
in the late sky
a science of waves
O haunted mirror
it’s been a while
since I visited this place
I found it once
the future I’m reaching for
long past reliving
days turning
to see the sun
rise and set in a galaxy
inside billions of stars
I found you
falling lonely into light
a fantastic red-orange gloaming
a phantom light that said
you will see greens
you can only encounter here
I made this for you
–
Peter Gizzi is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Fierce Elegy (2024), winner of the Massachusetts Book Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He is currently a senior global fellow at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.