Cathars

/ Issue 13.2 /

Their long looks crossing like spiderwebs
cloth. The cloth is beautiful. They stand
in clusters, shaking the snow
from their hoods and hair
though the whole atmosphere
shines with snow, and the ocean
moves darkly under the wind,
and clouds like empty sails.
Clamorous armies are even now
crossing the rivers. We must stay quiet:
the granaries are full. We have to walk
from hilltop to hilltop, we have to think
like stone. Speak like soft white stone.

Noah Warren

Noah Warren

Noah Warren is the author of The Complete Stories (2021) and The Destroyer in the Glass (2016), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Recent poems appear in The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is a PhD student in English at UC Berkeley and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford.
Noah Warren

Also by Noah Warren (see all)

Author: Noah Warren

Noah Warren is the author of The Complete Stories (2021) and The Destroyer in the Glass (2016), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Recent poems appear in The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is a PhD student in English at UC Berkeley and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford.