![\"jennifer-boyden.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/jennifer-boyden.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nFrom the throats of herons and lost wolves,
\nwe learn of a mistake made by the gods.
\nThey gave us red-winged birds and vesper
\nsparrows who make songs of leaf-light
\nand flying. The gods thought we’d be so happy—
\nall that fruit, one big garden,
\nour nakedness in sun and water.
\nThey never counted on our needing a sound
\nfor longing, too. They gave that to the loon,
\nto wild dogs whose teeth throb
\nfrom the light of the moon; they poured it
\ninto the long necks of birds. How could they
\nhave known? Where in our bodies
\nwould they have moored the slender cry of the crane
\nwho calls out that night is closing the sky,
\ntaking away the glinted green
\nof the frogs’ moist backs, the dazzle the sun makes
\nof every hair, of every shining wing?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe Mouths of Grazing Things<\/i><\/a> is the most recent recipient of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry<\/a>, which has been awarded annually since 1985. You can also read another of Jennifer Boyden’s poems, “Inside This Next Vase, Likely<\/a>,” at Rattle<\/i>, and three more poems<\/a> (along with an appreciative essay) at Whistling Shade<\/i>. (Weston Cutter, the author of that essay, expands on his admiration of Boyden’s poems<\/a> at Corudroy Books<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
Orectic<\/i>, by the way, is an adjective meaning “pertaining to desires and their satisfaction.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the throats of herons and lost wolves, we learn of a mistake made by the gods. They gave us red-winged birds and vesper sparrows who make songs of leaf-light and flying. The gods thought we’d be so happy— all that fruit, one big garden, our nakedness in sun and water. They never counted on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}