... A pleasant soul
Herself, they agreed: her plump features
Vacant of malice ...
They were soon fetching out their soft hearts
To compare, calling to mind
... the mountain winter,
Her solitude, her sore feet,
Haling her down with all but music,
Finally, to the valley,
To stand with bared gums, to be embraced,
To be fussed over, dressed up
In their presents, and with kind people
Be settled in a good house,
To turn chatty, to be astonished
At nothing, to sit for hours
At her window facing the mountain,
Troubled by recollections
No more than its own loosening stream
Cracking like church pews, in spring,
Or the hawks, in fall, sailing over
To their own rewards.
--W.S. Merwin
(National Poetry Day, UK) also National Poetry Week in Utah Oct 9-Oct 15
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4 comments:
Not all your visitors are unwelcome. I'm enjoying the poems. Why all Merwin?
P.S. Finished Gilead. Great book. I think I'll pick up Housekeeping sooner or later. I thought it was amazing that Robinson could write an old preacher in Kansas so well. Isn't she British? The book had a lot of nice thoughts. The godson story line didn't work all that well. And there was one terrible sentence. Its on page 196 when the preacher is carrying on an awkward conversation with his godson: "Ah," he said, as a man might when a chasm has opened at his feet.
Isn't that a very different kind of AAAAAGGHH!?
LOL!! Fer Sure!
PS I just happened to be reading some Merwin. I like him.
You've been on fire the past couple days. Nice to see you active again! If you choose "delete permenently" the deleted comments will not show up on your blog!
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