casting away

Casting Away

for Turner Cassity

What burning force
beyond the curtain
of all that’s certain
draws us out from shore
into solution?

What glitter over
twilit water parses
hidebound human
parts to droplets
in an ocean,

our needs made
slight and slender
as the reeds we were
surrender to
redemptive motion.

Born in rural Iowa in 1943, William Conelly attended and then quit the Air Force Academy in the early 60's. He then completed both Bachelor's and Master's Degrees at UC, Santa Barbara, under direction of the much-acclaimed poet Edgar Bowers and, 1969, moved to Massachusetts. Over 30 odd years in that state he held various jobs in passing or part time —sales, transportation services, research, advertising and freelance writing— before settling into teaching freshman comp at Westfield State College.