In the Poet's HouseAuthor(s): Margaret GibsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring, 2008), p. 54Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20536946 .

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MARGARET GIBSON

In the Poet's House

More than the Philokalia or the small brown cross on the white

washed wall, the kitchen light switch is the teaching.

One puts aside the ache of ambition. The hurry of hunger one

puts out the door

into a dish for the cats. One must stand there

and slowly turn the switch?it is round, like the sun?until a faint

hitch in the turning

says now, and the light flickers on.

Each moment is like this?a genesis in the Gospel of Gentleness.

54

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