Certain Mercies, taking its subject matter from the natural world and the everydays of existence, explores the middle-age common "empty-nest" phenomenon and "change of life" at midlife at the same time it deals with general philosophical issues.
Willows in Autumn
The winsome diffident willows
with the youth gone
from their year let a light wind
take up their long hair
in golden skeins
as it would mend a frazzled sun.
They say nothing.
They simply shake their heads-
Well aware of our enraptured
gazes, as when
the fair-haired girls and their
swaying motions
teased us into tempest
when the bloom had not begun
To go from our year,
or from the memory of a year.
About Daril Bentley
Daril Bentley is the author of five previous books of poetry, and has published poems in numerous periodicals. A career writer and editor, he has edited the work of many well-known authors of fiction and nonfiction—as well as poetry by celebrated poets past and present.
Mr. Bentley’s first book, In That Other Life: And Other Poems, was a semifinalist for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. He has been twice finalist and guest reader in the Scottish International Open Poetry Competition and has received an editor’s commendation in the University of Wisconsin’s Brittingham Prize in Poetry.
His work has also been recognized by the Idaho Writers’ League, the Kentucky State Poetry Society, and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. His The Long Lake: And Other Poems was a 2007 finalist for the New Mexico Book Award for Poetry. He and his son David reside in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Certain Mercies, taking its subject matter from the natural world and the everydays of existence, explores the middle-age common "empty-nest" phenomenon and "change of life" at midlife at the same time it deals with general philosophical issues.
Daril Bentley is the author of five previous books of poetry, and has published poems in numerous periodicals. A career writer and editor, he has edited the work of many well-known authors of fiction and nonfiction—as well as poetry by celebrated poets past and present.