“Abide” is such a beautiful word, and so mysterious. How to define it? I feel the same about this poem by Jake Adam York, which is beautiful and mysterious and infused with the sense of autumn mingled with the last bits of summer. It’s the title poem of York’s posthumous book, Abide, which elegizes martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement. To spend more time with it, watch this choral performance of music Dan Forrest composed for the poem.
“...forgive me the few
syllables of the autumn crickets,
the year’s last firefly winking
like a penny in the shoulder’s weeds
”
