“One of Twenty-Eight Views of the Moon” by Vivian Teter

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858), ‘Yumihari-zuki,’ ca. 1830-1850, woodcut on paper.  Collection of the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, founded as Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

after Hiroshige’s Yumihari-zuki

The world

is floating

now

as then.

Now

as then

the steep way between

looks utterly unreasonable.

And the moon just a silver shiver

appears to be below us at times

when now, as then,

our eyes seek skyward.

But then we turn to the beautiful

view freed by your hands and now

we see a bridge twisting across

one peak to the other

and what filled and dazzled

your eyes then

now fills and dazzles ours

as we gaze

through centuries

at your gift of breathless

breath, so calm

so light.

Vivian Teter’s Translating a Bridge was published in 2007 by Toadlily Press of Chappaqua, New York as a chapbook in the volume Edge by Edge.  Her current manuscript is titled Breath Enough and includes poems based on her experiences as caretaker of a younger sister who survived 29 months with brain cancer.

Teter’s poetry has appeared in Spoon River, Green Mountains Review, The Missouri Review, Poetry East, Other Voices International Poetry Project, and The Gettysburg Review, among others.  One of her recent poems was chosen to be incorporated into a permanent public art installation at the Tysons Central 7 Metro Station to open outside of Washington, D.C. in December 2013.

The recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations, she holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Arizona and a B.A. in English from Hollins University.  She teaches at Virginia Wesleyan College.

Contact Information: 

Vivian Teter, Batten Professor of English
Virginia Wesleyan College
1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA 23502
757-455-3340  |  vteter@vwc.edu