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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SONG OF TWO CROWS, by HAYDEN CARRUTH Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I sing of morrisville Last Line: Where all the ends are wrong Subject(s): Poverty | |||
I sing of Morrisville (if you call this cry a song). I (if you call this painful voice by that great name) sing the poverty of my region and of the wrong end of Morrisville. You summer people will say that all its ends are wrong, but there, right there, the very end of the wrong end -- a house with windows sagging, leaning roadward as in defense or maybe defiance next to the granite ledge, our cliff of broken stone that shoulders our dilapidated one-lane iron bridge. Who lives here? I don't know. But they (Hermes reward them) made this extraordinary garden, geraniums, petunias and nasturtiums planted in every crevice and all the footholds of the cliff. And then they painted the cliff-face, painted the old stone; no design, just swatches of color, bold rough splashes irregularly, garish orange and livid blue. Is it fluorescent, do these stones glow in the dark? Maybe. I only know they glow in the day, so vivid I stopped my car, whereupon two others came inquiring also, two crows in the broken spars of the white pine tree, cawing above the house. Why had those who inhabited this corner of poverty painted the stones? Was it that the flowers in living bravery nevertheless made too meager a show for the ruined cliff? Or did they think to bring art to nature, somehow to improve this corner of ugliness? For my part I thought how these colors were beautiful and yet strange in their beauty, ugly colors, garish orange, livid blue; they reminded me of those Spanish cemeteries I saw in New Mexico, tin mirrors and plastic flowers in the desert. Then I knew why the stones had been painted: to make reparation, such as the poor might make, whose sorrow had been done here, this desecration. Is not this the burden of all poor lands everywhere, the basis of poverty? A spoiled land makes spoiled people. The poor know this. I guess the crows know too, because off they flew, cawing above the bridge and the slashed hills surrounding Morrisville. I started my car and drove out on the iron bridge which rumbled its sullen affirmation. And I sang as I sing now (if you care to call it song) my people of Morrisville who live where all the ends are wrong. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WEALTH OF THE DESTITUTE by DENISE LEVERTOV EMPTY PITCHFORKS by THOMAS LUX FUNERAL SERVICE by EVE MERRIAM A SMALL COUNTRY by CLARIBEL ALEGRIA DOCUMENTAL by CLARIBEL ALEGRIA NOTES ON POVERTY by HAYDEN CARRUTH PENCIL STUB JOURNALS: CHOICES by JOHN CIARDI AT LAST WE KILLED THE ROACHES by LUCILLE CLIFTON IN THE EVENINGS by LUCILLE CLIFTON I'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH A REAL HARD TIME BEFORE' by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE WORLD AS WILL AND REPRESENTATION' by HAYDEN CARRUTH A POST-IMPRESSIONIST SUSURRATION FOR THE FIRST OF NOVEMBER by HAYDEN CARRUTH |
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