I see the world through tempests of words.
Infiltrating dreams, they awaken me
at night, snoring lovers silenced
only by a bedside pencil and paper.
Like pixilated photos, faces
become phrases, a waterfall’s roil and roar
devolves to syllables, and cities seem constructed
of sentences rather than cement and steel.
Language flashes in blinding light, it’s music
drowning sound, metaphors extinguishing
smells until existence is caught
and pinned like butterflies in a cigar box.
But words amplify and animate objects,
deepening experience with sense
and sensation, allowing me to grasp
this whirring life, and hold onto it at last.
David K. Leff is an award-winning poet and essayist, and former deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. He is the Canton, Connecticut poet laureate, deputy town historian, and town meeting moderator. He was a volunteer firefighter for 26 years.
In 2016 and 2017 David was appointed by the National Park Service to serve as poet-in-residence for the New England National Scenic Trail (NET). He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize, and has twice been a finalist in the Connecticut Book Awards. David has received two silver medals from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), and was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. His work has appeared in anthologies, newspapers such as the Hartford Courant, and magazines including Appalachia and Yankee.
The author of seven nonfiction books, three volumes of poetry, and two novels in verse, David’s work focuses on the connection of people to their communities and the natural environment. He often explores commonplace elements of the world around us that have hidden meanings and unusual links to each other.
David has been the book review editor of Connecticut Woodlands, the quarterly magazine of the Connecticut Forest & Park Association and is now poetry editor. He is a staff writer for The Wayfarer Magazine.
David’s papers are located at the Special Collections and University Archives, UMass/Amherst. View his work at www.davidkleff.com
