It was as if he took all his springs and summers, falls and winters, and lived each in one dose. They no longer brought, like salesmen, again and again, their samples of fruit and leaves. They stretched through years. They claimed their territory. He was born into fifteen years of alert cold. Knowing nothing but…
Susan Sontag is down in New York City tonight writing and she wants to explain something to you. She has it sort of figured out, or part of it, and she would like to set it straight for you. William Gass is out in St. Louis thinking and he has a series of connections between…
Feeding the Birds Lured by unnatural feeding, by promises of plenty lavishly sprinkled and arced and scattered on cold weather, even the tufted titmouse has recently been known to loiter in the north here into winter. To feed or not to feed? The weather lady is careful, subtle, non-committal, anxious: “I’m sure more studies must…
for my Grandmother Nobody troubled you that last night, no one came. No daughter visited whose unrelenting care accused you of your deep need to have her there: child now to your own child, only your needling her (she could do nothing right) kept clenched your pride, yet left you needing her that much more….
The wolf discovers his fur is changing: gone flat now, sleek as sealskin. Once grey, now hazel, his gaze holds past territory, past food to memory and meeting. A giraffe he approaches stares before bolting. Shrills of alarm through the jungle. He deserts the ancestors’ feeding ground. He grazes now, like another, calmer species. At…
Made a fool of. She rose to that. She would not be made a fool of. She looked down at the tennis court. She couldn't hear any of their noises through the window. The girl was good, played like a man, concentrating, sweating. Coiled for her backhand. Whipped it across with top spin. He had…
At first you will know her as yours only by a vague contrariness That characterizes everyone else you love, among others you and myself. You will see in her your marriage — that is there will be more Of her mother than you thought you bargained for. You will find her set of mind, her…
And one other thing, Fear not she is frail This young girl though she’s slender You’ve seen the pitless bee Swoop hard in his flower — But no stem’s ever snap’t Take her firmly. No half-hesitant pressing’s Gotten all the sugarcane’s Sap. — Anonymous from the Subhàsitàvalì
the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not (Wordsworth) When your post-War Plymouth rattled up to our eternal practice, and you vaulted the fence, we’d drift down from the wildness memory does not hold, still half sky from shagging day-long flies. Sweat-suited, someone’s father, you’d bawl “Men!” Did the future press…
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