Galway Kinnell

How Could You Not

for Jane kenyon It is a day after many days of storms. Having been washed and washed, the air glitters; Small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower Visible against the firs douses

Fergus Falling

He climbed to the top Of one of those million white pines Set out across the emptying pastures Of the fifties – some program to enrich the rich And rebuke the forefathers Who cleared

Poem Of Night

1 I move my hand over Slopes, falls, lumps of sight, Lashes barely able to be touched, Lips that give way so easily It’s a shock to feel underneath them The bones smile. Muffled

The bud Stands for all things, Even those things that don’t flower, For everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; Though sometimes it is necessary To reteach a thing its loveliness, To put a hand

The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students

Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me Snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting You were beautiful; goodbye, Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain Brown envelopes for the return of your very Clinical Sonnet; goodbye,

Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair In The Moonlight

1 You scream, waking from a nightmare. When I sleepwalk Into your room, and pick you up, And hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me Hard, As if clinging could save

The Cellist

At intermission I find her backstage Still practicing the piece coming up next. She calls it the “solo in high dreary.” Her bow niggles at the string like a hand Stroking skin it never

Daybreak

On the tidal mud, just before sunset, Dozens of starfishes Were creeping. It was As though the mud were a sky And enormous, imperfect stars Moved across it as slowly As the actual stars

Oatmeal

I eat oatmeal for breakfast. I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it. I eat it alone. I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone. Its

Two Seasons

I The stars were wild that summer evening As on the low lake shore stood you and I And every time I caught your flashing eye Or heard your voice discourse on anything It

Wait

Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they Carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become

Telephoning In Mexican Sunlight

Talking with my beloved in New York I stood at the outdoor public telephone In Mexican sunlight, in my purple shirt. Someone had called it a man/woman Shirt. The phrase irked me. But then

The Perch

There is a fork in a branch Of an ancient, enormous maple, One of a grove of such trees, Where I climb sometimes and sit and look out Over miles of valleys and low

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

For I can snore like a bullhorn Or play loud music Or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman And Fergus will only sink deeper Into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all

Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September Among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries To eat blackberries for breakfast, The stalks very prickly, a penalty They earn for knowing the black art Of