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Like a boxer finding his feet
Gets off the floor
Or a ship buoyantly climbs
The crest with a groan
An unseen technician
Slides the dial, and here
Comes our plentiful
European light;
No scavenging hyenas
Or roaming hawkers here
To disturb our preening
Stillness. Only swans
Doing their best to glide
Like card cut-outs
Across the perfect stage
Where a man sits
Head in hands, watched
By sleeping strangers
Whilst he declares
“Morning won’t suffice.”
Are we ever completely satisfied? I don’t think so. It takes a rare person to appreciate beauty just for itself without calculating its value or wanting to possess it somehow.
Morning will never suffice for most people, I’m afraid. We always want a perfect afternoon, a starlit evening, a storm, a clear day, greener grass.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I find that in a quiet times, with a dawn chorus as a gentle accompaniment – morning does suffice.
Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks, Zara. Somehow, the people who are most appreciative of what they have are the ones who have almost nothing. That’s in my experience, anyhow… I don’t mean that to sound like a moralising statement, it’s more of an observation… and an implied question: Why?
Cool poem, and equally cool questions raised.
Re: “Why?”
It’s as if upward mobility were an end in itself, and not the draw to a flame that will provide greater warmth.
The ones who appreciate what they have are often those who hold no greater hope for having more. Sans the means, or the desire, to possess more, they are content with less.
Or, so my own observations lead me to deduce.
Yes…
“Getting and spending, we lay waste…” (W. Wordsworth)
We all do it, it’s a 21st century consumerist affliction I think. Also a 20th.
“There’s something happening here but… [we] don’t know what it is…” (R. Zimmerman)
I think I forgot where I put the alarm clock (I said that).
Deleuze and Guattam once wrote, a little tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless, that “our society produces schizos the same way it produces Prell Shampoo or Ford cars, the only difference being that schizos are not saleable.”
and an implied question: Why?
Sometimes being alive is enough. For some of us it’s just that damn simple.
Great post.
Damn, Henning,
That was really wonderful.
Is that the first poem you’ve posted here?
More!
(My last address for you is in Italy, and I don’t have your e mail address, so could you send me your address, my Christmas cards are ready. [email protected] Thanks.)
Well yes, Irene, first poem, something about a poem makes you want to hide it. Know that feeling? I would love to dig up a few more, will do.
PS. Sent note & address…
It’s because they’re so personal.
Don’t hide them.
Post them.
But I think we have to send poems to the poetry editor, we can’t just upload them. Anyone know?
I won’t hide them, you’re right Irene!
This has got that sort of Robert Creeley false simplicity, you get taken in by the flow and ease of it, only to realize something great is unfolding before you, like when a great sax solo comes out, and it makes you think you could play saxophone it’s so good.
Thanks, glad you liked it and it’s good to know someone took time to read a poem. I have not read so much Robert Creeley but I will check him out – any particular collection of his you’d recommend? Charles Olson and Allen Ginsberg are big favorites of mine. Also Charles Bukowski, I try to take a dose of him daily as a sort of medicine.