Beside my chair...
More Than Sixty by Jack Gilbert
Out of money, so I'm sitting in the shade
of my farmhouse cleaning the lentils
I found in the back of the cupboard.
Listening to the cicada in the fig tree
mix with the cooing doves on the roof.
I look up when I hear a goat hurt far down
the valley and discover the sea
exactly the same blue I used to paint it
with my watercolors as a child.
So what, I think happily. So what!
Jeez, I don't think I would be so cheerful if I was down to a few lentils, so I'm wondering if the author was really down to his last small meal. The poem reminds me of a Buddhist story in which a monk falls off a cliff and grabs a blueberry bush as he falls. The bush holds him but is coming out by the roots, so the man picks a blueberry and enjoys the taste. Yeah, right.
ReplyDeleteSnow, you made me laugh out loud. Lord, but you kill me. You can take the boy out of Mississippi, but you can't take the South out of the boy. I'd love to talk to you face to face. In spite of our spiritual differences, I think we'd get on like a house on fire. Plus, you love cats. I presume you are not Zen, then? HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! You rock! xo
ReplyDeleteactually, i've known one or two literally down to their last lentils and they have been happy for them. what are you going to do? might as well make soup.
ReplyDeletejack gilbert can do no wrong. well, he did plenty wrong in his lifetime, he would probably tell you. but he made beautiful soup.
Erin, me, too. You know I adore Jack Gilbert...He was one of the few male poets who, IMO, could do no wrong. His poetry has changed me deep inside, especially this one which is the first poem of his I ever read. I wish I could hire a sky-writer and write it on the watercolor-blue sky. It's still my favorite and has absolutely NO EQUAL!!!!! xo
ReplyDelete"Tear It Down" by Jack Gilbert
We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of racoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within the body.
i understand why you love him, marion. he's incomparable.
ReplyDeleteno one can write and get away with this, "Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh." AND have it be as powerful as it is!!!