Adam David Miller

Adam David Miller is a poet, writer, publisher, radio programmer, and producer. Born in South Carolina, Miller published one of the first collections of modern African-American poetry, as well as ...

Forever Afternoon

Adam David Miller

Forever Afternoon demonstrates sure craftsmanship, sensitivity, and keen insight into the motivations and reactions of a variety of characters, sometimes presented with dramatic or narrative precision from their own point of view. When Adam David Miller writes from his own experience or imagination, the reader can identify with the universality of his perceptions. His lyrics are celebrations of life, a refreshing spectrum of simple and complex experience interpreted with a mature wisdom.

Many of Miller’s poems have appeared in Neighborhood and other Poems, a chapbook, and numerous magazines and journals over the years. He is also editor of the anthology,Dices and Black Bones,and editor and publisher of Mina Press publications. Forever Afternoon is his first major collection and is the winner of the first Naomi Long Madgett Award, sponsored by the Hilton- Long Poetry Foundation.

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Forever Afternoon
What is death to the caterpillar we call a butterfly — Anon.
Ladder of success is an image I abhor

My spirit does not wear down
or wear out like a car or shoe.
While my body wanes, waxes my spirit
brighter.

I am in eternal metamorphosis.
Constantly consumed,
I consume myself.

Life has no stages; the word resolution
lies; life has questions, connections.

Life is a wheel of fortune, my life
a gift to be passed around the wheel.

Do we ask where does the caterpillar
go when it becomes a butterfly?

The caterpillar does not go, it becomes.

Spirit of caterpillar lives in butterfly,
same heart, beating stronger.