Stanley Kunitz 1905-2006

"Touch Me"

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,

and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.

Take Me to the River

Just finished reading Dreaming the End of War, the new book of poems by Benjamin Alire Saenz. Wow. What a wonderful collection. It's a booklength sequence, told in a prologue and twelve dreams. The "war" in question is many wars: the violence boys learn as children, our violence against the animals we use for food, men's war against women, men's war with their fathers, immigrants at war with themselves and the lands they have come to live in, and the world's countries at war with each other. All of these are woven together in the series of twelve dreams. And it's truly moving to read in one sitting, I could not put it down. Reading them one after another, you can hear the themes return and reprise.

Here are a few excerpts (most of the poems use white space very well; sorry, but I am unable to reproduce the formatting):

from "The First Dream: Learning to Kill"

The Curanderos say
the animals will save us
in the end. Be good to animals.
Esos inocentes son la salvacion
del mundo. They will be waiting

when you die. . . .


from "The Second Dream: Killing and Memory and War"

. . .

My uncle Frank told me the peace sign
was the footprint of the American chicken
My uncle Frank never fought in a war.

. . .

from "The Fourth Dream: Families and Flags and Revenge"

I don't believe a flag
is important
enough to kiss —
or even burn.

Some men would hate me
enough to kill me
if they read these words.


from "The Sixth Dream: Animals, Food, Aesthetics"

I live in a century of aesthetics.

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Though I can take a thought and dress it up
Then take it out to eat, and then pretend

That alexandrine couplets are my friends;
Alone, my thoughts are wrinkled and unpressed,

And I take of my clothes so I can rest —
My thoughts are more important than the dress.

*

Though I can take a word and make it rhyme,
I cannot shove the world into a couplet.

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The final poem ("The Twelfth Dream") is Saenz' dream of his own death, seen as an end to war. All of the themes from the prior dreams come back, which in music is something like a _______, I think. It's beautiful and stunning. A great read . . . I highly recommend it.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom

  

Mail Call

It's a lovely spring Saturday in Seattle. I saw patients all morning at clinic, and am also on call for the week (again), but it has been fairly quiet so far, only two newborns.

Yesterday Dean and I planted a dozen Walla Walla Sweet onions, two canteloupe, two yellow tomato (not romas, we couldn't find any), and a yellow pepper. Everything looks perky and thriving. Hope we get a long hot summer.

In the mail today:

The May issue of Poetry. Looks like there are some interesting letters to the editor regarding the Hoagland essay of last issue (or was it the issue before?). Also two poems from Seatle poet Rebecca Hoogs.

The latest Seattle Review, including my little poem "Aesop's Dog" (" . . .one bone or two?/When I heard the splash I knew.") As well as two lovely poems from our own Jeannine Hall Gailey, and a fine essay about medical training and patient narratives (or loss of patient narratives), "History and Physicial," by Seattle Neurosurgeon Rick Rapport.

The latest issues of Out Magazine and Out Traveler. Time for Dean and I to start planning the next trip. It's our 20th anniversary this December. Maybe thinking of Hawaii, or Greece. Ahhh . . .

Happy reading!

Mt. St. Helens Lava Dome

 

This big fin of rock is growing at a rate of 4-5 feet a day, and is currently almost 500 feet tall. Every few days a piece the size of a truck breaks off the top. Onlookers say it's like watching a mountain grow.

Speaking of which, one of my sisters stopped by today with her 6 month old: and he is HUGE! We had a great time checking in, and going for a little walk with the stroller around the neighborhood. Here's a pic (such a proud uncle). 

  

The New Scrabble

The Fourth Edition of the OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) has been out for months, but I am a laggard, a slow adaptor, a stick in the mud. I am still using OSPD-3 (gasp!). I just don't know if I can live in a world where "new" Scrabble words such as FE, KI, OI, QI, ZA, VIG, VUM, FEDEX, and JIGGY are allowed. Perhaps it is ZA that most offends my aesthetic — it's dorm slang for "pizza." And FEDEX? How is that a word? Let alone a verb? (Yes, FEDEXED, FEDEXES, and FEDEXING are allowed. It boggles the mind).

But I do like some of the new words. Ones I have wanted to be able to play for years, such as DUH, DEF, FAB, MEDS, BURQA, and ZOOEY. (Try using those in a sentence.)

A list of more of the new words here. Or you could just break down and buy the frigging thing.

Not a Garden Poem

. . . but there is a tree in it.

Is That a Zucchini in Your Pocket?

Today Dean and I are planting the rest of this year's vegetable garden. We had already planted lettuce, beans, and broccoli raab from seed, and we have been having fresh baby greens for a week or so. But everything else we will plant from starts (I know, it's cheating, but the growing season is shorter in these northern latitudes!).

Today we are planting:

8 roma tomato
2 red "bush goliath" tomato
6 basil
1 zucchini
1 yellow crookneck squash
1 eggplant
2 cucumber

We are still looking for some golden romas. Hope we find them soon.

Planting the vegetable garden, getting my hands in the soil, spreading the mulch, weeding the paths, laying out the hoses, always gets me in the mood for writing garden poems. Not sure the world needs another garden poem. But we definitely need our gardens.

What are you planting today?

Which Extremity of the World Are You?

I was hoping to be really deep, like the Marianas Trench. Or really high like the Himalayas. But a frigging desert? C'mon.


Which Extremity of the World Are You?
From the towering colossi at Rum and Monkey.

More searches that have recently led to this blog

Tell the world I died for love

Apricot martini

What does it mean to be born in the year of the pig?

Poem for a virtual dog

Skin cutters

Virtual hotties

Is sparkling water safe during chemo?

Poems about asparagus

Funny Fag Poems

Take me to the clouds above

Hiccupping in Diabetes

I've been reading Sarah Manguso's Siste Viator. It's a good book, very similar to The Captain Lands in Paradise. She favors the disjunctive, elliptical poem. But there is a strong "I" at the center of most of them. And a good sense of humor, that I admire. Like a more reader-friendly version of Jorie Graham.

Here's a taste:


Will We?

My favorite euphemism for death is the future.

Vermeer's kitchen maid is not the most famous painting in the Rijksmuseum even though she pours her milk perfectly and milk poured no more slowly then than it does now.

In Cleveland, Aunt Jean offers me a Vantage and teaches me a game of solitaire called The Queen Goes Into the Woods.

The older I get, the more I am able to discard.

Will we never live together in the round house?


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Better to Shed No Light on the Mystery Than to Shed Bad Light

The zeros gather on the hill and start to bleat:

If I'm not a one, what am I?

Come here, little zero!
and together we can invent one.

I can bury my face in your soft wool.

Wooly zero, someday I will make a coat of you!


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It's a slim volume (only 60 pages) with beautiful design and cover, from Four Way Books.

The Pile of Glad Elegance

I pillaged elegance at the flog
of the Untied Tastes of I, Camera,
and to the Epic Blur for which it stands,
aged innuendo or not, invisible id,
with Injected Salubrity for all.

Beyond the Virtual Muse

Ron Starr at the Library of Babel is talking about computer-generated Dog Language, and more. Check it out here.

When Love Means Nothing

an old one from the back files . . . perhaps worth resurrecting?




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