Jared Carter

Waterfall

Water, of things that lift and fall,
          becomes itself
Again, and cannot break, but stalls
          above a shelf

Of limestone. There, in high summer,
          light and shadow
Overflow, become the murmur,
          rising below,

Where water, level now, conveys
          no further song,
But captures what would seem to stay
          in what moves on.


Laborer

Who made a living digging graves
          and grinding stumps.
No difference, he said, you save
          the dust and lumps

And shovel them back in. What's left
          of what was once
A man, or tree, is now a gift
          for worms. Some dunce

Or weeping relative might leave
          a tip for me.
I hit the bars. Outside, the trees
          wait patiently.

Jared Carter’s most recent book of poems, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in West Virginia.  He lives in Indiana.