Who – a poem by Tim Suermondt

Who
 
I was convinced it was an omen,
seeing the owl on a plank
in the apartment complex—
wisdom, wisdom.
 
Making my way to the diner
for an evening soup and sandwich
I thought of how this wisdom
might manifest itself—
 
could it possibly be strong enough
to save me, save the world?
That’s asking for a lot from wisdom,
but I trusted my instincts,
 
now that I was on the verge
of a sharp increase in intellectual heft.
I said to the moon Be nice,
great things are coming—wisdom, wisdom.

Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World came out in 2023 from MadHat Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Smartish Pace, The Fortnightly Review, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.