Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NO TIME FOR SELF-PITY, by CLARENCE MAJOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NO TIME FOR SELF-PITY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Always / I'm the one slightly slighted, he said


Always
I'm the one slightly slighted, he said.
But there is no why.
Desire is one thing.
The fall of events another.
Take migrating birds, black inkspots against sky.
You navigate while I snap pictures.
Wrens go south, flapping,
light as leaf tissue.
No self-pity, they just go,
giving up their nests,
with rose-pink bitterroot hanging down -- go, go, go --
like the girl said that time in Italy, go, go go --
and if you could eat, say,
cherries in midair or eat spiders,
dig up earthworms and shit
from a telephone pole,
you too would have no time
for self-pity, no time
to ask yourself why
you get the cold shoulder.
You'd just go,
pecking at tree bark when you could,
eating a lot of stuff that looks back at you.
To avoid death, you'd go
in cold weather to stay warm,
stopping, say, in some ash tree
to catch your breath.
Then go on,
doing what comes naturally
on a long-distance flight.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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