MICHAEL BURWELL
Poet, Editor, Researcher
"Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance."
Carl Sandburg
WELCOME
My name is Michael Burwell and I'm a writer, editor, and researcher. As you browse this website, you'll find a selection of my writings and an array of literary services that I offer.
Check out my About page to learn a little more about me
and Contact Me for more information on how I can help you complete your personal or organization's next important writing project.
BOOKS
POEM OF THE DAY
Fukushima—Elegy for the North Pacific
Sometimes a wave bends
in on itself, crippled,
limps 4,000 miles
from a burning shrine
in the west,
topples to shore
with more than wood or weed.
Sometimes it brings
death as a seal
or a brace of guillemots,
on Tuesday terns
still as chalk,
Wednesday, a score
of murres upended.
We pour blessings
over salmon and crab,
but they offer up
themselves
only as the dead.
On shores to the south,
beaches warm
to more salt and music
where other men
pretend their hem
is another sea.
Still, their children know
they deform in the estuaries,
in houses of polished dirt,
among feeble corn.
A diver finds an oyster
with an eye, without shell.
Nuts and milk won’t nourish.
Sometimes poison takes
too much away
and we must go farther
out into the trees
to build our church,
pen a new gospel
saying: look away.