Arthur Sze, the first Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, is the author of numerous poetry collections, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems and The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2024). The recipient of several awards, including a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Sze is also a chancellor at the Academy of American Poets. He lives in Santa Fe and is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Photograph by Jennifer Brummett.

Grand Bay

by Arthur Sze

GRAY SPANISH MOSS hangs from the cypresses—

you stroll on an elevated boardwalk over dry swamp,

step off the platform and take a short path
to a green pitcher plant among grasses: it shows

signs of drought but is larger than your arms
can circle. The streaked pitchers resemble yearning

mouths opening at all angles, in all directions.
An alligator has flattened nearby horsetails,


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