Chapman Hood Frazier
In the Wide Space of a Moment
What is place but a space opening in time
between words.
a discovery:
across the carpet,
in your hair,
where you lie
waiting to die.
whose name meant grief?
fading in the attic’s
In a generation, his look
Each dentalium shell
is a sacrifice to place.
endures. Time’s brief
a breath
heard then
Outside, a chickadee
repeating its name
silent as a breath
Each moment
blur of light
snowflake melting
ice lacing the pond’s edge
watching snowfall
Where is the boy
His name framed in gold
dim light.
his laugh, forgotten.
burned upon one’s death
Only memory
erasure
between words
passed on.
at the feeder
again and again.
Chapman Hood Frazier’s The Lost Books of the Bestiary was published in 2023. His work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Poetry Review, The South Carolina Review and other publications. Several poems have won awards from the Poetry Society of Virginia and his “Conversations with Contemporary Poets” interviews with poets from the US and Northern Ireland have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicles, Agni Online and Shenandoah. Currently a Professor Emeritus from James Madison University, he lives in Rice, Virginia and co-manages Bellfield Farm LLC, a writer’s retreat.