Rachel Eliza Griffiths
WebsiteYears: 2006, 2008
Biography
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet, writer, painter, and photographer. She received the MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and the MA in English Literature from the University of Delaware. A 2007 Pushcart Nominee, she is the recipient of fellowships from Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, Napa Valley Writers Conference, New York State Summer Writers Institute, Soul Mountain, and others. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Comstock Review, Brilliant Corners, Mosaic, Puerto Del Sol, Torch, Lumina, PMS: poem memoir story, and many others. She lives in New York.
Poem
Beneath Moonlight
For years I watched
a swell of nightmares galloping
along the garden wall.
My father would come home, untying
a weary bouquet, the smell of
God working in his breath.
Hinged moths paused
upon beveled glass, solitude
a hundred waiting matchboxes.
Things have injured me.
All day & now the low night,
the night says it will always be
this way: the violence of nature
enchants its laws.
I'd hold a lamp near the window,
a child who polished saddles & bridles,
wiping blood & froth away
from the work of memory.