Praise
After Gerard Manley Hoplins’s “Pied Beauty”
Praise the stitched world—
the fox’s rusted flank against snow,
lichen freckling stone like old thought,
the heron’s patience, blue as held breath.
Praise what does not announce itself:
moss working shade into green,
seed learning dark by heart,
the creek repeating what it knows
until the rock listens back.
For the uneven gifts—
scarred bark, split fig,
a wing that lifts despite the wind,
and the body, forgetful yet faithful,
still turning toward light.
Praise the brief and the returning:
firefly, frost, a hawk’s shadow
loosening from the road,
the small correction of spring
after we thought it gone.
All this—
unwilled, unowned,
held together by breath and time.
Sam Aureli is a design and construction professional, originally from Italy, now calling the Boston area home. A first-generation college graduate, he’s spent decades immersed in concrete and steel. Poetry is what truly feeds his soul these days. With retirement still a decade away, Sam balances the grind of his day job with the refuge he finds in writing. His work has appeared in The Atlanta Review, West Trade Review, Underscore Magazine, Chestnut Review, Stanchion Magazine, and other literary journals.
Amethyst Review 