Verities

by Sean Sexton

 

It has to be beautiful 

Wendell Berry


Running the fence through early mist

ahead of the herd to open a gate,

I pass a glittering, dew-kissed 

web, other prisms hung, each—

in any likely reach, loveliness

with no constraint.

Yet in a moment-turned thought, 

I see humble tenancy, 

a fisherman's tattered net, just- 

mended and set, or vendor’s 

rude stands—only their hands

—astir in the wakening city.

                  ——

For the shining band of ibises 

appearing suddenly

in front of the rooming house 

lawn—had a summons been issued

on a standing army to fill languid

mornings with beauty?

They advance in formation

brandishing rosy weaponry

probing the greensward in unison.

And with no time for applause,

they’ve flown from our eyes,

off to the grand emergency.

Sean Sexton was born in Indian River County and grew up on his family's Treasure Hammock Ranch.  He divides his time between managing a 700-acre cattle operation, painting, and writing. He is author of two chapbooks, and three full volumes of poetry: Blood Writing, Poems, Anhinga Press, 2009,  and May Darkness Restore, Poems, Press 53, 2019, and Portals, Poems, Press 53, 2023. He performs regularly at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV, and is on the faculty of the 2024 Southeastern Writers Assn. Conference on St. Simon's Island, GA in June . He was nominated for a 2020 and 2021 Pushcart Prize and received a FL Individual Artist’s Fellowship in 2001. He's a board member of the Laura Riding Jackson Foundation and founding event chair of their Annual Poetry and Barbeque held each April, now in its fifteenth year. He also co-founded Poetry and Organ Advent and Lenten Concert Series at Community Church in Vero Beach, FL featuring nine concerts annually attracting poets from all over the US. He became inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County in 2016.