I place this within the first order
of wonders: a ten-year-old girl
alone on a sunny, glassed-in porch
in February, the world beyond
the windows slowly tipping forward
into spring, her thin arms held out
in the sleepwalker pose, and pinched
and stretched between her fingers,
a length of common grocery twine
upon which smoothly spins and leans
one of the smaller worlds we each
at one time learn to master, the last
to balance so lightly in our hands.
----
Ted Kooser, American Poet Laureate (2004-2006).
This poem appeared in his collection "Delights
and Shawdows," for which he won the Pulitzer
Prize for poetry in 2005.
7 comments:
Very inspiring Ruben... I love this.
Have a grand week and big hugs to your darling Anita!! Sherry
Greetings Ruben!
This is a fantastic one, isn't it? What an incredible poet.
The best to you and Anita..
- Irina
Thank you, Ruben, for your very kind words!
- Irina
Like that Dude.
The Dude Abides.
Morning Ruben.The Dude Abides.
Just posted on of the most moving poems I have ever discovered.Tears Dude tears.
Delmore... a sad genius,but aren't they all?
Hope you Yankees are all safe with the Hurricane due.
The Dude: F..k sympathy! I don't need your f...in' sympathy, man, I need my f.....g johnson!
Donny: What do you need that for, Dude?
God Bless.
This is singulier aussi.
TDA
America, America!
I am a poet of the Hudson River and the heights above it,
the lights, the stars, and the bridges
I am also by self-appointment the laureate of the Atlantic
-of the peoples' hearts, crossing it
to new America.
I am burdened with the truck and chimera, hope,
acquired in the sweating sick-excited passage
in steerage, strange and estranged
Hence I must descry and describe the kingdom of emotion.
For I am a poet of the kindergarten (in the city)
and the cemetery (in the city)
And rapture and ragtime and also the secret city in the
heart and mind
This is the song of the natural city self in the 20th century.
It is true but only partly true that a city is a "tyranny of
numbers"
(This is the chant of the urban metropolitan and
metaphysical self
After the first two World Wars of the 20th century)
--- This is the city self, looking from window to lighted
window
When the squares and checks of faintly yellow light
Shine at night, upon a huge dim board and slab-like tombs,
Hiding many lives. It is the city consciousness
Which sees and says: more: more and more: always more.
Delmore Schwartz
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