Poem of the Week by Jane Hirshfield

Many-Roofed Building in Moonlight

I found myself
suddenly voluminous,
three-dimensioned,
a many-roofed building in moonlight.

Thought traversed
me as simply as moths might.
Feelings traversed me as fish.

I heard myself thinking,
It isn't the piano, it isn't the ears.

Then heard, too soon, the ordinary furnace,
the usual footsteps above me.

Washed my face again with hot water,
as I did when I was a child.

Jane Hirshfield's books of poetry include Come, Thief (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), After (HarperCollins, 2006), and Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2004, Hirshfield was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets. She was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2012.

To read more work by Jane, visit poets.org