STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
GARY MCDOWELL
To house. To heat. To threat of fears
you must step through. So much
to be thankful for. Could you, if you
reached quickly enough, capture
the wren sitting on the windowsill?
Who would be more surprised, you
or its mate up in the sycamore?
The glass frames your face, and I love
you again as if for the first time.
Once you were up half the night
worried about a dog we saw on
the side of the road, and you asked me,
why didn’t we stop? Mythology
happens when we tell the same
stories over and over. The rest
is context. Most of our bodies—
and the surface of the Earth—is water;
most memories are ripples on its surface.
Gary McDowell is the author, most recently, of Aflame (White Pine Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Other books include Caesura: Essays (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2017); Mysteries in a World that Thinks There Are None (Burnside Review Press, 2016), winner of the 2014 Burnside Review Book Award; Weeping at a Stranger’s Funeral (Dream Horse Press, 2014); and American Amen (Dream Horse Press, 2010), winner of the 2009 Orphic Prize for Poetry. McDowell is also the co-editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010). McDowell’s poems and essays have appeared recently in The American Poetry Review, The Nation, Gulf Coast, Southern Review, Ploughshares, and others. Gary lives in Nashville, TN where he is Professor of English at Belmont University.
