Prospect

Nudged by a random prompt, it happens, i picked up Bob Creeley again. Although not taken with Black Mountain as a whole, I'd held on to Mirrors through the great bookshelf poetry cull of 22.  And his poems seem quite new to me now, as if, at first reading, what, 10 years ago? they hadn't touched me at all - poor, slow fool.

PROSPECT

Green's the predominant color here,
but in tones so various, and muted

by the flatness of sky and water,
the oak trunks, the undershade back of the lawns,

it seems a subtle echo of itself.
It is the color of life itself,

it used to be. Not blood red,
or sun yellow - but this green,

echoing hills, echoing meadows,
childhood summer's blowsiness, a youngness

one remembers hopefully forever.
It is thoughtful, provokes here

quiet reflections, settles the self
down to waiting now apart

from time, which is done,
this green space, faintly painful.

Robert Creeley

Thinking of Jean Rochefort

The Man on the Train

>>>
This is the gate, here is the key,
cellar’s open, larder free:
latter empty, first half-full,
piano more or less in tune
and my remaindered library,
its books like yesterdays’ papers:
black and white and read all over,
like an embarrassed penguin or,
should I say, a bleeding nun?

<<<
It long has seemed to me
words allow what you let them.
Tell me, do you listen to Schumann?
I like your poetry and, most of all,
the way you have things gently.
Your life, it looks like heaven.
Well, put the gun away,
you’re on platform number seven.