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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: HADAS, RACHEL Matches Found: 386 Hadas, Rachel Poet's Biography 386 poems available by this author 116TH STREET First Line: I walk downhill and lean into the wind Last Line: Laws we though we had enacted turn, %chisel in hand, and carve us like a stone ACTS OF VANISHING First Line: A feast whose preparation has claimed years Last Line: No summer's surfeit fills the hungry maw. %the law says vanish. We obey the law ADVICE TO A FRIEND First Line: Not that when I lived there first Last Line: Under such strange conditions, how %easy to escape one's ghosts! ALEATORY III First Line: We carved a path for striding toward what Last Line: I tried to follow, but it was too late ALIEN CORN First Line: Turn to a blustery march where cinderella Last Line: Needed to pace and trace the labyrinth %bobbing in the slaty austere sea ALLEGORY First Line: Having found the key, I need a door Last Line: Rediscovery. Key; pearls; thread. Begin ALONG EDGES First Line: Scientist of mourning, doctor, teach Last Line: The spotlight of your desk lamp is a clue %to secrets I will learn of first from you ALTERNATIVES First Line: Our argument went walking down the street Last Line: Shone up at us, wet silver. %was this the city where we'd always lived? ALWAYS AFTERNOON First Line: You ask, this honeyed drop of summer time Last Line: Our ceremony of always afternoon %even as the seasons slide inexorably on AMNESIA, CHANGES First Line: What was I going to say? I forget ANSWER TO A LETTER FROM BOULDER First Line: Your backyard I imagine as festooned ARGUMENTS OF SILENCE First Line: Silence as friend. For what can grow without it? Last Line: If anything can guarantee our silence, %death can. But silence doesn't equal death AROUND LAKE ERIE AND ACROSS THE HUDSON Poem Text First Line: A rotten week, affections Subject(s): Dreams; Nightmares AROUND LAKE ERIE AND ACROSS THE HUDSON First Line: A rotten week, affections Last Line: I fin I'm giving thanks Subject(s): Dreams AROUND THE CITY: PARK, MUSEUM, POETRY READING, COLLAPSING Last Line: Even our eyes gestate the shapes of darkness ART 1 First Line: Translucent etymologies Last Line: Half remembered poets from their haloed %obscurities rising,falling %either way cheat the oubliette ART 10 First Line: Skirting the coast, we spotted something black Last Line: Trees that cradle in their somber foliage %what dead and dreadful thing? ART 11 First Line: Tracing a chiasmus when they praised Last Line: Particular and universal, %elegy, artifact, intrusion: %nothing to do but join the dots I saw ART 2 First Line: Letters and syllables popping up, so many Last Line: Ignoring the smear of gold %that daily stains the window ART 3 First Line: The rocks that make this house's Last Line: And now she sinks beneath the golden stones %on which we built our house ART 4 First Line: To fall asleep in lamplight Last Line: Scornfully away across the water, %away from the rich suburb's pale pastels ART 5 First Line: Ghosts walk here. The divinity student in the guest room Last Line: Sealed, the house cups it occupants %all in one damp palm of stale affections ART 6 First Line: Week-long immersion in gabble! Last Line: Year in, year out, the struggle with one's means ART 7 First Line: Get to the woman and write her words down now Last Line: Ruminating slower, slower, slower. %dialects wither and dry up like moss ART 8 First Line: Smile, dirt of a world Last Line: Our paths converge on the winding %stair, beloved neighbor ART 9 First Line: We shared a popsicle, not cream or sherbet Last Line: Red-handed, smear-mouthed, lurching through the %meadow ART, SELS. First Line: This light has not decided what to do AT THE BEACH First Line: You spalsh in a shallow AT THE TEMPEST First Line: In the long speech that bores miranda so Last Line: Masked in likeness, fanged and clawed with pain, or giggling, gulping, flowering like spring rain AUGURIES First Line: Impatient with what's visible Last Line: Silently across the floor %stalk the fingers of afternoon BAGS First Line: Our last day in the country, appropriately while we're packing Last Line: Whose bag and baggage is finally neither more nor less %than their own body BANQUET First Line: In both dreams about my father he is alive again, but in a public Last Line: I was not there to help them BAREFOOT First Line: Although it is thanksgiving, wet and cold Last Line: Between the appetites of earth and heaven BASIC HUMAN DREAD First Line: When asked about her mood Last Line: Big rachel said BATH First Line: I have been floating in the mild hot tea Last Line: Present, future like two rings %I carefully take off and lay aside BEAM First Line: Novels tend to be about all those Last Line: Not narrative but clues are what we need BEDTIME First Line: How can I put you down BEDTIME STORIES First Line: In key west I visited d.J. Last Line: In search of what if not this love displaced? Subject(s): Beds; Story-telling BENEFIT NIGHT, NEW YORK CITY BALLET First Line: Once in its mannered mode Last Line: Divested of despair. %you turn and smile at me BIBLIOMANCY First Line: Fat murdoch novel bought at the good will Last Line: Strain toward a future never wholly there BIRD WALK First Line: I was looking forward to the bird walk early the next morning Last Line: Blackberries picked at sunrise BLACK LIGHT First Line: Having swum for seven Last Line: Tingling, it yields transparent %secrets to my throat BLACK: 1 First Line: Judging from how my first husband's brother Last Line: I only notice and participate- %partially, edgily BLACK:L 2 First Line: A poetry reception %several seasons back Last Line: Won't someone please explain the black? BLUE BEAD First Line: One of jimmy's parties. Five at most Last Line: The world he left, the words he leaves us too, %so many little globes of radiant blue BODY OF BOOK Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: This is one way to talk about a book: Subject(s): Books & Reading BREAKFAST AFTER THE BATH: DEGAS, 1883 First Line: Cosy intimate interior glow %what come to mind are crass banalities Last Line: Chiefly in its attention to detail %although her back is turned, I think she knows BREAKFAST AT THE METRO First Line: Breakfast with a friend from out of town Last Line: A few belated soapsuds %soundlessly and slowly slipping down CARAVAN First Line: A blank dreams do their best to fill Last Line: And loved to someplace else CASSANDRA First Line: My cassandra moments do not consist so Last Line: Starting somewhere smallish and spreading, spreading? CHIASMUS First Line: We are comparing notes on honesty Last Line: Your muted gaze both says and doesn't say CHILD INQUIRES WHETHER A STORY IS REAL First Line: I'm brooding on legitimate confusion Last Line: On to others. Or is it world and word CHILDREN WHO BITE First Line: A series on child psychology Last Line: The placard reads take care of him. He bites CHORUS First Line: A greek I worked for once would always say Last Line: A shape. A piece of myth. A pattern. Laws CISTERN First Line: The source is underground CITY AND COUNTRY: 1. THE RETREAT First Line: Ah, the conspiratorial Last Line: Or you could say we leave %to see the city and to be unseen CITY AND COUNTRY: 2. THE DREAM OF DIVESTING First Line: When it's finally time to go away Last Line: Forever greener grass %is cleverly reflected %in memory's glass CITY AND COUNTRY: 3. AT A DISTANCE First Line: We eat our daily bread but we don't taste it Last Line: Everything-including you and me- %looks better at a distance. %this is being written in the country CODEX MINOR First Line: The headless bird flew back Last Line: Could I come here again, I said, to live? %could I come here again? COLERIDGE BACK FROM THE DEAD Poem Text First Line: A strong if small survivor Subject(s): Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) COMINGS AND GOINGS First Line: If not the impulse, I have lost the knack Last Line: He stepped out, sorry. Or, she'll be back soon COMMITTEE MEETING First Line: There is something important to say Last Line: The battle raging while my eyes are shut. Subject(s): Reason; Intellect; Rationalism; Brain; Mind; Intellectuals COMPACT First Line: The short steep ride in the red bus uphill Last Line: Stretching its arms out, longing to be closed COPIER First Line: Courage turns out to be catching Last Line: The freighted molecules of our new air COPY OF ARIEL First Line: Not only is the same bookmark in 'poppies in october' Last Line: Even if the haze through which they shone %yielded to each morning's arrow: sun CORRESPONDENCES First Line: Letters of poets: how to comprehend them? Last Line: Telling you you are this and this and this COSTUME CHEST First Line: The costume chest is ransacked; an old play Last Line: Of how it feels to wear another's skin COVER-UPS, 1 First Line: Impeccable softness Last Line: Stroke it to dullness, coax it smooth again. %huge hollowed lap, I ache to cradle absence COVER-UPS, 2 First Line: Summer field where many seasons back Last Line: Vistas of tumbled whiteness: %relentless winter pulls the bedclothes up COVER-UPS, 3 First Line: I knew that I would squirrel away the snow Last Line: That tiny tract of saturated white, %burnish some dull hour to a high shine COVER-UPS, 4 First Line: Trodden by daily traffic, little feet Last Line: Pull aside the curtain, %touch what's underneath COVER-UPS, 5 First Line: Cartouches of exposure and invasion: Last Line: Arrows %press inward to black holes %outlined in angry red COVER-UPS, 6 First Line: The wound, he called it, women really are Last Line: To be spread %over a festive table %or a marriage bed COVER-UPS, 7 First Line: A gesture of revelation Last Line: Barely recognizable, a scroll unrolling, %soundless as a frozen waterfall CROSSING First Line: She's struggling south on west end avenue Last Line: Possibly the lily, the last look CUPFULS OF SUMMER 1 First Line: After the great divide, the slope's round bone Last Line: Making the changed less stark than I had feared, %but only the old magnet drew me back CUPFULS OF SUMMER 2 First Line: The rhythm here is not so much recurrence Last Line: A layer of decorum has endured, %hard to get off as honey once it's spread CUPFULS OF SUMMER 3 First Line: The memory custodian guides them over the grounds Last Line: They are pronouncing an invisibly %hovering love they say will reach us later CUPFULS OF SUMMER 4 First Line: The sky today is watermarked with faint Last Line: And each day's field-one world laid on another. %those dream instructions cobbled it together CUPFULS OF SUMMER 5 First Line: The vision came near sheffield. Circling hills Last Line: The precious vintage gathered drop by drop %of purest light-we stood around the cup CUPFULS OF SUMMER 6 First Line: The central stone on which successive waves Last Line: Racquets held high, we're running toward the net, %crushing the bones this instant. They smell sweet DADDY First Line: These weeks, and up and down, and it goes on Last Line: It would be funny, if I loved you less, %life's lavish spread of food for elegies DAWN DREAMS Poem Text First Line: If you were there when I woke Subject(s): Dawn; Sunrise DEAD POET First Line: Given a dream house, I know how I feel Last Line: Empty of what he left us: poetry DEAD WOOD, GREEN WOOD First Line: For seven hours nowhere to be found Last Line: My father writing letters against time DEGREES OF DIFFICULTY First Line: Vertical, silver, glinting Last Line: And rub our skins with oil to make them smooth DEJA VU Poem Text First Line: A flap in time, a hinge in space, a secret drawer, a panel Subject(s): Memory DEJA VU First Line: A flap in time, a hinge in space, a secret drawer, a panel Last Line: Each episode, each conversation burnished, fiercely clear Subject(s): Memory DEMETERS First Line: The desire to be physically close to the beloved Last Line: Hovers the ache we live and live within DEPARTURE First Line: At first a boiling from within. The heart Last Line: Without a backward look DESIRE First Line: Winter in the city. Molten cold Last Line: Question and answer coincide one hour DIORAMA First Line: Children I see this fall-that tiny girl, for instance, in a hot pink sweatshirt Last Line: The glass of age, the glass of separation DOUBLE ELEGY First Line: The country of the sun DREAM MACHINE, SELS. First Line: Believe in dreams as vehicles of both Last Line: That cereal was phantom nourishment %proffered in a tantalizing dream DREAM OF SEVERING First Line: Violent, the severing: a son from sleep EASTER AFTERNOON First Line: Blossoming bulbs, pots swathed in pink and green, Last Line: Rattling the windows, and a crust of ice %seals the opening magnolias. ELEGY AS PROPHYLAXIS First Line: Uncomfortably attuned to evanescence Last Line: With a faint friendly mew ELEGY VARIATIONS: 1 First Line: Tears in themselves are not a test of love Last Line: A few dark drops for the road, %and turn to trace the paths of separation ELEGY VARIATIONS: 2 First Line: I knew no better than to say don't cry Last Line: Our places taken, not much need to speak. %belatedly the flaws of winter break ELEGY VARIATIONS: 3 First Line: The letters smear the sky Last Line: Or did the voice of winter %disguise itself as love? END OF SUMMER First Line: Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn-- Last Line: We translate back to portents of the wars %looming above the nervous watch to keep EVERY PORE AND FOLLICLE First Line: Teenagers stare at themselves so long and hard Last Line: A slowly dawning welcome EXPRESSION First Line: Our faces peeled to raw banality Last Line: Because our human masks are far too thick to show %glimmerings of selves we barely know FACELESS WILL First Line: Now I am past fifty Last Line: We mutually quickly turn away FALCON First Line: Stumbling along a sidewalk clogged with snow Last Line: From the fierce blizzard of oblivion FALL OF TROY First Line: Sing now the heavy furniture of the fall Last Line: Carrying battered merchandise marked rome %in one direction, pondering it all FEARS OF HIS SMALLNESS First Line: A grain of rice lost in a casserole FENCE OF THE TEETH First Line: Not the burgeoning season (late may, early june) nor the centry fast Last Line: Glistening, stirring, dripping, blushing green Subject(s): Language FIELD NOTES ON YOUNGER SIBLINGS: 1. IDENTIFICATION First Line: Since I have recently come to feel that even as we age Last Line: Tempting, but I wouldn't go that far FIELD NOTES ON YOUNGER SIBLINGS: 2. HELP FROM THE OLDER ONES First Line: How do our older brothers and sisters Last Line: Though with a more irresponsible tread FIELD NOTES ON YOUNGER SIBLINGS: 3. PLEASE PLAY WITH ME! First Line: A younger sibling's way of saying please Last Line: Without a backward glance, and zooming on FIELD NOTES ON YOUNGER SIBLINGS: 4. WHAT WE THOUGHT THEY THOUGHT First Line: What do we think they thought of us Last Line: Meanness like that you never forget. He didn't FIELD NOTES ON YOUNGER SIBLINGS: 5. OUR WAYS OF THANKING THEM First Line: When our father died, my sister was twenty Last Line: Persistent in a world of change and loss FIN DE SIECLE First Line: Impossible to read a paragraph Last Line: A picnic at the swimming hole, a walk %among wildflowers at the quarry's edge FINAL EXAMINATION First Line: Life is short. And also life is long Last Line: Three hours is very short and very long FIRST NIGHT BACK First Line: Back in the country, too Last Line: We wear our bodies deeper %and deeper into time FIVE DISGUISES First Line: Deliberate footsteps braid Last Line: Habit by now alone %strong as a mask can mold the tender bone FLESHLY ANSWERED Poem Text First Line: Doomed beauties, my companions, my familiars, Subject(s): Life; Death; Human Body; Dead, The FLESHLY ANSWERS First Line: Doomed beauties, my companions, my familiars Last Line: We are passing through the world. %this is some of what it does to us FLYING HOME Poem Text First Line: Down milk-bright colonnades Subject(s): Air Travel FLYING HOME First Line: Down milk-bright colonnades Last Line: Rescue me from oblivion? %syrup of skittish travelers, fame. I yawn FOLDED BACK First Line: In plath's late poem 'edge' Last Line: Candidly, it seems, without regret FORGETTERY First Line: When a voice is silenced Last Line: Just what I was looking for FORK IN THE ROAD First Line: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood Last Line: Road toward the golden wood FOUR ANGERS First Line: You lean across the table FOUR FEARS First Line: Fear in the morning, small, discrete, discreet FOUR LIVES, STIRRING First Line: Lemons on damask (one) Last Line: Brilliance of march shrouds everything that might, %that will strain towards the light FOUR POEMS AT THE END OF SUMMER 1 THE BRIGHT CHILD First Line: A child's incessant questioning of names Last Line: These cool september mornings, gemmed with mist, %cobwebs glint on the lawn %tiny and scattered. Or FOUR POEMS AT THE END OF SUMMER 2 LIGHT ON THE PAST First Line: Consider. In the middle of a life Last Line: What is revealed cannot again be covered %no matter how completely %the place is scoured, fresh pape FOUR POEMS AT THE END OF SUMMER 3 UNNAMED First Line: Late in the summer of drought Last Line: Silent in the yellow %slant of the season's passing, %a shape of what has and has not been done FOUR POEMS AT THE END OF SUMMER 4 AN OLD SONG First Line: Monotonous, old-fashioned, sentimental: Last Line: Where elegy and reclamation meet, %there is the ground for immemorial song FOUR SHORT STORIES First Line: One. In the opening speech of agamemnon Last Line: She tells its story till the lights go down FRIEZE ADVANCING First Line: Whether the moving figure keeps both hands Last Line: Grapple as motives with a silent fierce %glee at the achievement of escape GATES First Line: No wonder we so love the dead. The living Last Line: Desperate presences %hammering at the gates Variant Title(s): On The Other Han GAZE First Line: A young gentleman of magna graecia Last Line: To public; limited; historical GENEALOGIES First Line: The muses are the daughters of memory Last Line: Father, I age %and turn to you as I would turn a page. %the muses are the daughters of memory GENERATIONS: 1 First Line: How well I understand it now, my father's Last Line: He wants them, though he does. Rather it's that %the words wait, shining virgins, for his use GENERATIONS: 10 First Line: Flies in amber? Something viscous, heavy Last Line: You and I, younger, move more freely through %our thickening matrix. Naked, the baby flies GENERATIONS: 2 First Line: Bathroom scale, thermometer are ock Last Line: Or drops of water in the bath, or bits %of dandelion fluff that, puffed at, blow away GENERATIONS: 3 First Line: So as he picks up language's far-shadowing Last Line: Sidesaddle, I just manage not to touch %his hands that tightly clutch the pole. His head GENERATIONS: 4 First Line: Some experts find the fear of nuclear Last Line: Thirst for the ease of dream and fable, food %and mirror, money, ivory, and horn GENERATIONS: 5 First Line: Focusing on zero, you look Last Line: Having no choice but to entrust ourselves %to the torqued embrace of twin impossibles GENERATIONS: 6 First Line: After the chinese food and beer and kisses of reunion Last Line: Who soon will dive form the fragile tower %into an unfathomed blood-warm sea GENERATIONS: 7 First Line: We sit and cogitate our common lot Last Line: Latest in lullabies, bubble and squeak %of guts, lub-dub of the maternal heart GENERATIONS: 8 First Line: Scattered in play over the lawn, these beans Last Line: Popping in grass and in my head at night, %crammed and meaning, coded for the future GENERATIONS: 9 First Line: Toddler in nursing home, cooings predicted-- Last Line: Unequally. She can't reach out to him; %sheer quicksilver, he cannot sit still GETTING RID OF THE DOG BY TAKING IT AROUND THE MOUNTAIN First Line: Swoop over rainless land Last Line: On the far side of the mountain Subject(s): Animals; Dogs GLEAM IN THE EYE First Line: One way to say before your life began Last Line: It's easier than seeing all we'll lose GREEK GOLD First Line: Penises erect if you stoop to squinny Last Line: Of the rest of the museum first; then stairs; then fifth %avenue. Winter GUST First Line: My bird, oh my beloved Last Line: Your presence is a grateful gust of grief, %a wing brush and an echo--oh, an absence HALFWAY DOWN THE HALL First Line: Bruno bettelheim observes somewhere Last Line: The normal nourishment of brain and eye %flickers toward invisibility HALL OF MIRRORS First Line: Of course I miss it, the sensation Last Line: Your abeyance comes along with me HAPPINESS 1 First Line: What if I could sit right here forever Last Line: Stone woman in unending afternoon %at a stone table under a stone sun HAPPINESS 2 First Line: Out of all the amplitude of summer Last Line: Would we stall forever %in a drowsy hinterland? HAPPINESS 3 First Line: Already in the pineshade Last Line: To keep us here immobilized in summer, %or meekly, smoothly glide on into fall? HEADLINES IN THE NATIONAL HERALD First Line: Last spring the word for p.O.W. Last Line: Ringed by no one's wreckage but our own HELEN First Line: This is the river nile, whose waters flow Last Line: And know as well I never went to troy HERMES First Line: Messenger, courier, bearer of commands Last Line: Immune to disappointment and desire HERMIT First Line: April, may, and finally june Last Line: Till old experience makes a true %hermit of either me or you HINGE First Line: Resentments of grown children: slanting, thin Last Line: My mother sends me out into the snow %in silence where I listen for her voice HORTUS CONCLUSUS First Line: Our walk that sunday morning in the mind's kind eye Last Line: One sees (it's pure illusion, god knows how) %when looking back at days of parenthood HOUSE BESIDE THE SEA First Line: Like a fine white shirt I put it on Last Line: Rags of the robe unravelling in salt air Subject(s): Literary Form HOW CAN I PUT YOU DOWN? Last Line: And come back whole %clutching morning's clue HUMBLE HERB IS RIVAL TO PROZAC Poem Text First Line: An item in science tuesday happens to catch my eye Subject(s): Flowers; Memory HUMBLE HERB IS RIVAL TO PROZAC First Line: An item in science tuesday happens to catch my eye Last Line: Wreathes the lonely air: %courage. Nothing good will disappear Subject(s): Flowers; Memory I LEAN MY LADDER First Line: I lean my ladder on Last Line: Handiwork of god %and turn to spy my son I.D. PHOTO First Line: Since I can feel my radiant nature shine Last Line: Lies in having lived than having died IDOLATRY BROOD First Line: To gaze at the enormous Last Line: Air and feel the sun's last kiss %blow hot on our closed faces IN LIEU OF A LULLABY First Line: What you are sucking is my life till now Last Line: And if that horse and cart fall down, %you'll still be the sweetest little baby in town IN MEDIAS RES First Line: Warm in the heart of the great library Last Line: It's strangely hard to say if they are moving fast or slow IN MY SON'S ROOM, NOT SLEEPING Poem Text First Line: Punishment? Banishment? The empty room Subject(s): Mothers & Sons; Separation; Insomnia; Anxiety; Sleeplessness IN THE BEGINNING First Line: Stories purport to tell us who we are Last Line: And why when I know he's waiting anyway %should I go halfway down the road to death? IN THE HAMMOCK First Line: Starting with fairy tales, we swing Last Line: Black hole, lightning, dinosaur, virus - chosen! %your guiding clue is mine, a mother's voice IN THE MIDDLE First Line: The story of summer is always somehow the story of sleep Last Line: But the place itself was mortal. %why do you want to know about the past? IN THE TAXI TO THE MRI Poem Text First Line: I try to concentrate on the weather. Everything Subject(s): Marriage; Illness; Anxiety; Weddings; Husbands; Wives IN YOUR CHAIR First Line: Who joins the ranks of the beloved dead? Last Line: So I could show you where I would be going INCUBATION First Line: I came back to the island to lie down Last Line: We shut our doors, %pull down the shades on a diminished love INTERTWININGS First Line: Not all my days. Not even all of this day Last Line: Their variegated colors, their one fragrance INVITATION WITHDRAWN First Line: I uninvite you. Do not lunch with me JOURNEY OUT First Line: Say that you're lying comfortably under Last Line: To this unheard-of life LAIR First Line: Excess of lemon, whether on the phone Last Line: Visions curl together out of light Subject(s): Literary Form LAMENTS First Line: Twilight seeps into this empty room Last Line: Stutter of silence, tape-loop troped as jewel, %nothing is constant, and they never do LAST MOVIE First Line: Saturday, april 5. Welles's othello: Last Line: What do I do? Do I throw all these away? %their anecdotes, their comforts--now black glass LAST TRIP TO GREECE First Line: I had the labels ready with their essence Last Line: Dreamily above the pool of time. %all the old lineaments were ripe for change LATE SPRING First Line: The cocoon of days swells, stirs LAVATORY IN A CATHEDRAL First Line: Is well concealed. No sign; no arrows. You Last Line: No sign, no arrow, cued to memory LEARNING TO TALK First Line: Some of the ways my parents passed me language Last Line: The squishy diction of gentility- %what talents, what avoidances, what losses! LENTEN TUNNEL First Line: You kneel and retch and pray Last Line: Whatever flows, I answer, %must have found a channel Subject(s): Aids (disease); Sickness LESS THAN KIND First Line: Syphilis surge and crack use raise aids fears Last Line: Of triumph, of accomplishment %or recognition's perennial pleasure LETTER First Line: New year's evening, 1999 %home from an unexciting open house Last Line: But -- striped in sun, blurred with salt water -- throbs %even when facing back, away from the ever LIGHT BULB First Line: Yesterday owen barfield died at ninety-nine Last Line: To barfield's daughter lucy Subject(s): Barfield, Owen (1898-1997); Writing And Writers LIGHT BULBS AND SOAP Poem Text First Line: September: sunday afternoon LIGHTNING First Line: Late landscape lit by lightning, you will soon Last Line: Screen out the strangeness of adjacent lives LIKENESSES First Line: Homer in his similes compares Last Line: Partial truth, intimate enmity LINEAR B: NOT A SESTINA First Line: At which the sestina waiting alertly in the margin Last Line: Pictures will understand, and he is right LION AND LAMB First Line: The fickleness of march; first black and white Last Line: Country nothing pointed to till now LITTLE BY LITTLE First Line: Let nothing be too big or too small to say or see LOVE 1 First Line: Your feet, big, shapely, dirty Last Line: Ray of a gaze %blind with ideas, milky as a river %too bright with mist to see LOVE 10 Poem Text First Line: I mother you you father me vice versa Subject(s): Love - Marital; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love LOVE 10 First Line: I mother you you father me vice versa Last Line: Proceeding down the avenue %clutching a clue, love's puzzle %not yet, not ever done Subject(s): Love - Marital LOVE 2 Poem Text First Line: Used to each other to the point that we Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives LOVE 2 First Line: Used to each other to the point that we Last Line: Even if for us %the grass has gone invisible with use %he sees it. So we keep each other green Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage LOVE 3 First Line: The door clicks shut behind us Last Line: I bend to touch an aster and remember %the miniature landscapes that I painted %prophetically years LOVE 4 First Line: Smelling like the pair of german shepherds Last Line: That long fierce gentle meeting %of bodies in the middle of their lives, %lives in the midsummer of LOVE 5 First Line: Or else a rainy morning lets us creep Last Line: Peer in at the empty cabin's window. %for sale. Bed, cupboard, stove; and a piano LOVE 6 First Line: Before first light the cat and her cornered mouse Last Line: Bedded between their leaves and moss %but warm and scarlet. Some are overripe LOVE 7 First Line: Flesh-colored memories. Plump, bruisable Last Line: The salmon sheets %suddenly stain scarlet with her blood. %he says, 'you're such a woman' LOVE 8 Poem Text First Line: Love as the secret doubling of bodies Subject(s): Love - Marital; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love LOVE 8 First Line: Love as the secret doubling of bodies Last Line: The centripetal/ %centrifugal juggle of two matched affections Subject(s): Love - Marital LOVE 9 First Line: Our visiting relatives, trunk-legged, round-bottomed Last Line: The awkward pedestal of an ideal %happiness by others less well matched LOVE AND NEED First Line: Love. When you don't want to go to sleep Last Line: Speech struggles from its background and stands out %so sharply that its shards can still draw blood LOVE AND WAR First Line: 7:45 on a bright may morning. %my son and I-our usual weekday routine Last Line: And my son away to an education %in god knows what LOWER LEVEL, ROOM EE First Line: Hospital, prison, leper colony Last Line: Glass held up to capture bright blue air. %love's ladder of illusion, rung by rung LULLABY 2 First Line: As if there were no enemy Last Line: We recognize this dear debris %and do not look for all we know LUNCH THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING First Line: To my right (your left) the steamed-up pane Last Line: If we sat long enough the light would redden, %oh burdened vessel chugging out of port LYING UNDER A QUILT First Line: Twilight: a drowsy dim Last Line: Till need uncorks me. Gently, %then, the contents leach MAD MESSGE First Line: Lest I forget our privileged green summer Last Line: Drapes ordinary phantoms - rage, regret, %fear - in the daily dignity of habit MAKING SENSE OF SALT WATER First Line: Try to see landscape whole and one wrong tree Last Line: Rolled between the maker's thumb and finger %out of chewy air MARCH LIGHT First Line: Through dirty windows MARS AND VENUS (BOTTICELLI, CA. 1475) Poem Text First Line: Gold tape gently billowing with her breathing Variant Title(s): Mars And Venus Subject(s): Art & Artists; Botticelli, Sandro (1444-1510); Mythology - Classical; Paintings & Painters; Filipepi, Alesandro Di Mariano MARS AND VENUS (BOTTICELLI, CA. 1475) First Line: Gold tape gently billowing with her breathing Last Line: Rhyming, secret, intimate, and familiar, %their two mysteries mingle in this: deferral %of ever afte Variant Title(s): Mars And Venu Subject(s): Art And Artists; Botticelli, Sandro (1444-1510); Mythology - Classical; Paintings And Painters MAY Poem Text First Line: The latest dream: a lofty hotel lobby Last Line: I lean against the coolness of the stone Subject(s): Dreams; Merrill, James (1926-1995); Absence MAY First Line: As soon as the cold old sun feels warm Last Line: My buried mother, my buried friend MAYDAY AT THE FRICK First Line: Sundays the doors don't open until one Last Line: But not what skillful human hands had made MIRROR First Line: Paradise: first the world within the mirror Last Line: Suspended in solution for our children %to find themselves within our steady gaze MO MENTS OF SUMMER First Line: Let gleaming notes of hayseed in the barn Last Line: Especially if we are lying down Variant Title(s): Moments Of Summer: MODERN GREEK 101 Poem Text First Line: These phrases, once lodged in your memory, Subject(s): Greek Language MOM AND DAD First Line: Exactly as I start to feel my son Last Line: And, not o long from now, I say to him, % remember how you used to call me mom? MOMENTS OF SUMMER First Line: The horizontal tugs me more and more Last Line: I savor freshly that sweet nourishment, %especially if we are lying down Variant Title(s): Moments Of Summer: Ii MOMENTS OF SUMMER: II First Line: June's supple weavings covered up the dry Last Line: Is muffled in imagination's veil. MORE NIGHT THOUGHTS: GHOSTS; HOW WE SEE OURSELVES First Line: Leisurely circling inside an utterance Last Line: Is everything except what's right in front MORTALITIES First Line: Unmake, remake the self: this means assuming MUTABILITY First Line: What is it that always rearranges Last Line: The scene we thought we knew, and the world changes MYTH OF A HAPPY CHILDHOOD First Line: Out of nowhere these six words have come Last Line: Here on the table, solid, warm with sun, %this strangely fragrant stone NAP AND THE GENTLEMAN CALLER First Line: Who is waiting for me, tall and solemn Last Line: Playwrights conferring on the other side of the wall NEOLITHIC FIGURINE, SPETSES ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM Poem Text First Line: Winged, bronze, two inches tall or less; Subject(s): Antiquities NIGHTSCAPE First Line: Innocent yawn: the cat's tongue curls Last Line: She also is obedient to laws Variant Title(s): Law NOSTOS First Line: Having ploughed the ocean to its iron rim Last Line: The specious cleanliness of what's behind. %nothing to do but live the years to come NOURISHMENT First Line: Love--its long spoon, its promise, and its threat-- Last Line: We turn our double back to speechlessly %and sit and eat our fill Variant Title(s): Mourishmen OCTOBER First Line: October thursdays. Circle of pale men Last Line: Wait; it is themselves they wave away. %the bodies they bestride here are their own ODE ON HIS SLEEP First Line: Each time I check your succulent Last Line: Its tidy lines dividing time and space again. %we climb back in and sleep a lifetime off Variant Title(s): On His Slee ODE TO SLEEP Poem Text First Line: O soothest sleep, if so it please thee, close Subject(s): Sleep OLD WHORE PETTICOATS First Line: When I was in my twenties Last Line: Hastily and contemptuously off ON DREAMS 1 First Line: Invisible to each of us in turn Last Line: And to envision either kind of end %and still move parallel.So much for love ON DREAMS 2 First Line: Tell me your dream. I know it as a house Last Line: Your presence %pulled away from light %ahead of time. I cannot bear the loss ON DREAMS 3 First Line: The horses of achilles! I was one Last Line: There was no end: %no graceful way out of the vaulted room ON DREAMS 4 First Line: The beauty and encumbrance of this world Last Line: Again %affection strains its fleshly boundary ON DREAMS 5 First Line: Fax me your dream. Or first take this of mine: Last Line: Every hour makes reference to the question %listlessly, dice shaken in the rain Subject(s): Dreams ON DREAMS 6 First Line: Poised yourself on a brink Last Line: Still you could wake up %into the steadfast flower of your body, %the wounded hours, the blank day's ON MYTH First Line: For myth's enduring freshness Last Line: And death that turns a bit each minute %so subtly we forget we're in it ON POETRY 2 TRIVIA First Line: By trivia I mean unmediated Last Line: Whole years fit into a tiny window, %sunny, untouchable, distant, %the scene it frames an idol out o Variant Title(s): On Poetry: 2. Trivi ON POETRY: 1. LYRIC First Line: All possible excrescences lopped off Last Line: Small explosions follow, their throbbing, % a welcome price for maimed intensity Variant Title(s): On Poetry 1 Lyri ON POETRY: 3. NATURE First Line: Hardest of all. Is it whatever fails Last Line: Not one but two lights, and a single urgent %finger pointing--is it up or down? Variant Title(s): On Poetry 3 Natur ON THAT MOUNTAIN First Line: Evidence everywhere: accumulation Last Line: Getting ready to go back down the mountain ORANGE First Line: When it is time to begin to think of Last Line: Doubt his existence. But the orange %pelt %ignites its emblem in the mirror's %eye OTHER SIDE First Line: Impressionist painters capture sun Last Line: Untied and sparkling in another sun OUR NEED FOR STORIES First Line: Tell me a story, tell me a story. Why Last Line: Tells us the broken world is where we are OYSTER GRAIN First Line: Think of the ancient fable. Wound and bow Last Line: Destined, like mythic rose or toad, to fall %once ripened from our mouths and roll itself away PANTOUM ON PUMPKIN HILL First Line: The goldenrod sheds pollen in the butter Last Line: I follow syllable by syllable: %the goldenrod sheds pollen in the butter PARENTS' HANDBOOK First Line: Arrival 10 a.M.: are we too early Last Line: Well, not much else to say, I guess. %love, mom PART AND WHOLE First Line: Struggling to explain metonymy Last Line: No; that is so much a part of us %we can let it go PASS IT ON, 1 First Line: Like a huge tree house out of mortal reach Last Line: Or treefall one can climb? A gap; a dome; more reaching hands; and a pervasive light Variant Title(s): Pass It O PASS IT ON, 2 First Line: I grope to find the phrases for two thoughts Last Line: Opens its wings. They spread. They cover us: %myriad lives foreshortened into word PASS IT ON, 2 First Line: I grope to find the phrases for two thoughts Last Line: I didn't know %the torch would have to pass through my own body PASS IT ON, 3 First Line: Lilacs look neon in fading light Last Line: Oil, oil in the lock. %the old key turns Variant Title(s): Pass It On, Iii PASS IT ON, III Poem Text First Line: Lilacs look neon in fading light. Subject(s): Nature; Time PASSAGE First Line: Tracking what is mortal, we forsake Last Line: At the abyss. %a thin song rises to the lips like air PEACOCK IN THE GARDEN First Line: When the peacock turned Last Line: (not onto me--I'd moved aside a little) %from where he roosted on the sun-warmed wall PECULIAR SANCTITY First Line: Except it didn't. It went underground Last Line: From the new, old, peculiar sanctity, %before returning to their grisly task PERFORMANCES, ASSORTMENTS Poem Text First Line: Performances, assortments, resumes' Subject(s): Crane, Hart (1899-1932) PERFORMANCES, ASSORTMENTS First Line: Performances, assortments, resumes' Last Line: The face, the janus faces, are your own Subject(s): Crane, Hart (1899-1932) PHILEMON AND BAUCIS First Line: My envy of people my age or older POLES First Line: Present and past: opposing entities Last Line: Bracketers of the place %that we inhabit, if time equals space POMEGRANATE VARIATIONS First Line: Most know the name. But since so many claim Last Line: Scarlet, intoxicating, onto white POMOLOGY First Line: Sappho, of the numberless kinds of apples Last Line: Seen from the roadside the tree is untouched, a virgin %beaming sheer ripeness PREREQUISITE First Line: That time across the water PRESERVING YOUR WEDDING GOWN First Line: Since I am waist-deep in the past Last Line: Just ask miss havisham PRONOUN VARIATIONS First Line: Me. My. You. I. Our. They Last Line: Pronouns passing, the great noun persisting PROPS First Line: The queen steps forward, strews the open grave Last Line: Bursts in to tell us she has hanged herself RAG RUG Poem Text Subject(s): Rugs; Carpets RAG RUG First Line: It has arrived at last--the long rag rug Last Line: If that is where I am. These rugs recover %the sense of stepping twice into a single river READING DAVID FERRY'S POEMS First Line: The words run clear like water in these poems Last Line: Even as it preserves him on the page %the language sweeping him beyond our reach READING THE PRINCESS WHILE GIVING BLOOD WHILE READING THE PRINCESS First Line: Waiting to give blood Last Line: Coloring the summer afternoon REAL LIFE First Line: Depending upon who's observing whom Last Line: When I sat down to write RECOVERIES: 23 WAVERLY PLACE, JUNE 1992 First Line: About to ring the bell of a good friend Last Line: Each visit was a vigil. So I sat %taking in the candied ginger's heat RECOVERIES: 460 RIVERSIDE DRIVE? NO TIME First Line: The old apartment's empty, dingy, brown Last Line: The acrid desolation of the dream %is tangy as a herring packed in cream RECOVERIES: CODA First Line: The future's where we place our hope and fear Last Line: A blond recorder resting in its stand. %kippers. Pastries. A remembered taste RECOVERIES: GREENWICH VILLAGE, MID-1950'S First Line: Once upon a time near union square Last Line: Soprano, alto, bass. Mouthpiece of amber? %blond wood or dark? The fur (wolf? Fox?) was silver RECOVERIES: ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL, MAY 20, 1992 First Line: Hurrying to the hospital last may Last Line: If I clean my sleeve, do I erase %my final expectation of her face? RECOVERIES: SWEET BRIAR, VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 1992; ALSACE, PRE-1924 First Line: A college pool, central virginia Last Line: Cream and butter, chocolate, raspberry... %can such rich pastries ever be again? RECYCLING Poem Text First Line: If from ruined tara's draperies Subject(s): Creation; Refuse & Refuse Disposal RECYCLING First Line: If from ruined tara's draperies Last Line: Edure as reference, memory, and love, %recycled, feather-light, perennial Subject(s): Creation; Refuse And Refuse Disposal RED HAT First Line: It started before christmas. Now our son Last Line: Since the red hat vanished from our sight RED HOUSE First Line: Malevich painted you. Can I come in? Last Line: Your eyes, your windows shrouded with salt spray %or windowless but still awash with light REDEMPTIONS BY TRANSFORMATION First Line: Forf half your life, one of your favorite toys Last Line: Private beauty in a spread of lives REFLEX OF SUMMER First Line: Exactly when you might expect the soul Last Line: Open your wings to what cannot be seen REINVENTION First Line: In an alcove a man is giving birth Last Line: Inventing, reinventing, we all are REVENANT First Line: A strange particularity %shapes this man asleep Last Line: Pass my fingertips %over the body %of the nameless breather REVISION First Line: This was my expectation of grief Last Line: The lights dimmed and went out. The curtain fell RHAPSODY FOR THANKSGIVING First Line: In a warm room and surfeited with turkey RIVERSIDE PARK First Line: I've always loved the autumn. Trees bleed amber Last Line: Russet brocades are draping, none is you ROADBLOCK Poem Text First Line: Call me the bee buzzing in the museum. Subject(s): Automobile Accidents ROADBLOCK First Line: Call me the bee buzzing in the museum Last Line: Moving ahead, kid sister into woman, %stonewalled by death each time she rounds a bend? SAPPHO, KEATS First Line: The girls in lesbos have dark eyes Last Line: Some rooting down of love, like wheat, %in the unjilting bed of ground SEA, SKY, MOUNTAIN, LANTERN First Line: Oilslicked, opal, sapphire SEAMY SIDE First Line: I and my women can unsnarl the state Last Line: Each other versions of an endless tale Subject(s): Relationships; Women SEARCH First Line: They speak, of course. But is it as a body Last Line: I look up in search of what is lost SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES Poem Text First Line: Sunny may morning; going through the mail Subject(s): Bible SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES First Line: Sunny may morning; going through the mail Last Line: Possibly be sufficient per lap. %ethan, who will be running, just turned ten Subject(s): Bible SECRETS First Line: The magnum opus when it operates SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION First Line: When my eyes rove in search of recognition Last Line: Until I tore myself away like skin %and walked into the story of the future SHELLS First Line: Scalloped synecdoches of satin cloud Last Line: Neither will I rinse them from my mind, %beloved bones dismantled into sand SIDE BY SIDE Poem Text First Line: Are you asleep? Not really. Subject(s): Night; Relationships; Bedtime SILVER AND GOLD First Line: I had a dream the other night Last Line: Nothing seemed aged or changed except for me SKY AND RIVER, NET AND OPEN BOOK First Line: Four o'clock. Five. Low air soft as a glove Last Line: How near, how far, oh simply how-do I SLEEPING BEAUTY First Line: Husk a person beyond summer's pale Last Line: To take your chances in, with years to spare. %I kiss you. Cured: the word hangs there like smoke SLIP First Line: Empty and trembling, haloed by absences Last Line: There all the while and yet not there forever SONG First Line: Even if every summer past were calling Last Line: Or that with sudden snorts of laughter we %puncture the pompous zero of an end SPRING First Line: Here come the new pastels! Magnolias fling Last Line: Hard spring light pours down without a word %into the pure, the newly naked eye STICHOMYTHIA First Line: Answers burrow into further questions Last Line: Yourself the angel to this sudden quiet STILL LIFE IN GARDEN First Line: Speechless, considering, feet well apart Last Line: The deep and inexhaustible green brood %you now are lost in, standing where she stood Variant Title(s): Still-life In Garde STRESS First Line: Philoctetes' venom-sodden foot Last Line: A mind of luminous tranquility, %a body open to the world's regard SUCCESSION First Line: Usurping divers, one behind or one above another SUMMER First Line: What the two boys built in the woods last week Last Line: Private, ecstatic, shared--okay, a fort SUMMER IN WHITE, GREEN, AND BLACK First Line: In the beginning summer stretches out SUMMER NIGHTS AND DAYS Poem Text First Line: So far the nights feel lonelier than the days. Subject(s): Summer SUMMER WEATHER First Line: The brimming trough of water in the meadow Last Line: Abeyance doesn't mean I won't return SUNDAY MORNING First Line: Sunday morning. Smell of something dead Last Line: As a result of which (the child %dabbing the spindle red %adds) she felt much better SUNSET First Line: Since you hadn't come Last Line: Baring her pointed teeth in the dark window SUPER NIVEM First Line: My scars are slow in healing, dark Last Line: But clotted letters I can read. %they mark the parts of me that bleed TAKING SIDES First Line: Who wouldn't want to be elsewhere? Last Line: Where we three bend our heads %and scribble away for life TEA AND A DREAM Poem Text First Line: One eye open, on its little island Last Line: "the black box, emptied of its cargo, light, Subject(s): Dreams; Merrill, James (1926-1995); Absence; Nightmares TEA AND A DREAM First Line: One eye open, on its little island Last Line: The black box, emptied of its cargo, light, %rides again to a parnassian height Subject(s): Dreams TEACHING EMILY DICKINSON Poem Text First Line: What starts as one more monday morning class Subject(s): Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) TEACHING EMILY DICKINSON First Line: What starts as one more monday morning class Last Line: Opens its wings. They spread. They cover us: %myraid lives foreshortened into word Subject(s): Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) TEACHING THE ILIAD First Line: Teaching the text, I feel Last Line: Margin and horizon like a screen %on which hexameters drum down like rain TENOR AND VEHICLE First Line: Ivy, scarlet signifier, climbs Last Line: And who will volunteer to be the stone? THANK YOU AND GOODBYE First Line: Thunder stalks the darkening rim of sky Last Line: When what we mean is take my plate away. %thank you edges over to goodbye THAT TIME, THIS PLACE First Line: All terribly remembered towers of troy Last Line: All fighters, fathers, all departed heroes, %our house cries out for you THAT WALK AWAY AS ONE: A MARRIAGE BROOD First Line: I was never accused of beauty THE AFTERGLOW Poem Text Subject(s): Conduct Of Life THE CHORUS Poem Text First Line: A greek I worked for once would always say Subject(s): Old Age; Tragedy THE END OF SUMMER Poem Text First Line: Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn Subject(s): Summer THE FALL OF TROY Poem Text First Line: Sing now the heavy furniture of the fall, Subject(s): Trojan War THE FENCE OF THE TEETH Poem Text First Line: Not the burgeoning season (late may, early june) nor the centry fast Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary THE HOUSE BESIDE THE SEA Poem Text First Line: Like a fine white shirt I put it on Subject(s): Literary Form THE LAST MOVIE Poem Text Subject(s): Motion Pictures; Death; Conduct Of Life; Movies; Cinema; Dead, The THE LIGHT BULB Poem Text First Line: Yesterday owen barfield died at ninety-nine Subject(s): Barfield, Owen (1898-1997); Writing & Writers THE RED HAT Poem Text Recitation First Line: It started before christmas. Now our son Subject(s): Parents; Anxiety; Parenthood THE SEAMY SIDE Poem Text First Line: I and my women can unsnarl the state Subject(s): Relationships; Women THREE ADOLESCENT MEMORIES First Line: Father, love, absence, silence, presence, other Last Line: To every toddler's bedtime, and beyond THREE SILENCES First Line: Of all the times when not to speak is best Last Line: The carnival preparing to leave town TRIOLETS IN THE ARGOLID Poem Text First Line: The taste is strong as ever, Subject(s): Time; Silence; Cell Phones; Taste (sense); Love; Worry TRIPTYCH First Line: Flanked by the yes and no Last Line: Precious as captured time %and real as wind and rain TWELFTH BIRTHDAY Poem Text First Line: As if because you lay Subject(s): Birthdays TWELFTH BIRTHDAY First Line: As if because you lay Last Line: You smiled. You knew time was my enemy TWINS First Line: Philip larkin says %novels are about those Last Line: Only in being both miraculous TWO AND ONE First Line: Asleep between us Last Line: The hour is noon %and is forever TWO CHARONS First Line: Charon? Sure. So far I've met him twice Last Line: We registered his presence, even so TWO CLASS TRIPS First Line: Behaving in obedience to a law Last Line: Framed by pastness, ready to be seen TWO PAINTINGS SEEN AGAIN: 1. SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON First Line: It needs a second visit Last Line: Standing musing over his green prey %will need another look TWO PAINTINGS SEEN AGAIN: 2. PETRUS CHRISTUS 'PIETA' First Line: It takes a second visit Last Line: Look back. Risk desiring to return UP AND DOWN First Line: Days into weeks UPON MY MOHTER'S DEATH First Line: Skull in the mirror, nodding: I can cope Last Line: The waiting countryside. And love's deep well UPON MY MOTHER'S DEATH First Line: The empty bed. And instantly I knew Last Line: Has a silver lining, I now see. %it blurs the limits of mortality Variant Title(s): The Empty Be VARIETIES OF ISOLATION First Line: The double lesson traces itself out Last Line: Executed by a trompe l'oeil master VISITING THE GYPSY First Line: A cool may night, green leaves Last Line: I gestured; said tziganes?- %the ancient language ringing through me like a gong WAITING Poem Text First Line: Each afternoon now (the concierge foretold it) Subject(s): Time WAR AND LOVE First Line: War: %to fashion narratives of pointillist Last Line: Nothing in nature, nothing out of nature %answered you, war.When nothing had a voice WATER AND FIRE First Line: Water and fire and a beloved face Last Line: Turns, sighing, to your inexhaustible %books, which englobe lost worlds in every word WAY WE LIVE NOW First Line: Susan sontag has a story called Last Line: Out of this world even for a single night WEEK AFTER EASTER First Line: Saturday. Suburban funeral Last Line: Air indise, then move toward the street WHALE First Line: Blueberries slow sun burnishes WHAT ABOUT ADULTS? THOUGHTS WHILE THE CHILD SLEEPS First Line: Sleep. I'll take the opportunity Last Line: Even as the seasons slide inexorably on WHAT COLOR WAS HIS BATHING SUIT First Line: If looking at the sky can make our babble Last Line: Only my love, filtered through gauze of story WINGBEATS First Line: I see with a pang how much I have left out. Less and less Last Line: Overhearing as from a hasty angel brushing by WINGED WORDS Poem Text First Line: Trying to speak means flailing with Subject(s): Literary Form WINGED WORDS First Line: Trying to speak means flailing with Last Line: Our words are bodies. We write on air Subject(s): Literary Form WINTER NIGHT First Line: Unhuggable, unspeaking. A new year Last Line: No drawbridge I can manage seems to span %the moat of the grim fortress you've become WISH GRANTED First Line: Far city, agora and games and temple Last Line: Scorching silence, %and the wide hayfield tilting WOLF IN BED First Line: From when you still could see Last Line: And read you stories of children %walking unattended through dark woods WORD AND WORLD First Line: Admittedly the impulse can be strong Last Line: Our need is as we gather to receive it WORK IN THE EARTH SO FAST First Line: Ruffles of pungent radiance, gold, maroon Last Line: Almost too promptly and too modestly to see Subject(s): Earth; Labor And Laborers WREATH First Line: My dream is of a wreath. No, of a woman Last Line: In her very desiccation YES, BUT First Line: It is irrevocable. Not like marriage Last Line: The child's cry in the night %hushes it for a little %that mortal ticking ZONE OF ATTRACTION First Line: Whether one took a lover Last Line: One by one and vanish in the air |
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