[1224] The Wild Iris
Guest poem sent in by Alan Kornheiser <akornhis@>
I discovered, to my amazement, that we seem to have no poetry by Louise
Gluck. This must be amended; hence the following:
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.
-- Louise Glück
|
Nothing is harder than the nature poem; to accurately describe the physical
world, to say something beyond description while still keeping one's
description exact: harder than it seems. Much harder. Here where I live, the
first Iris reticulata is just now forcing itself through the snow, a
foolhardy splash of wonderful purple.
This is the very first Gluck poem I ever read. I still love it. Comments
from other fans would be appreciated; I didn't enjoy her last book as much
as I wanted to, and I wonder if the fault is in me or it. Anyway, we have
The Wild Iris. And it is spring.
_________________________________
Alan S Kornheiser, PhD
Links:
Biography
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C0E06
And a couple of Louise Gluck sites
http://www.artstomp.com/gluck/index.htm
http://www.bomis.com/rings/Mg-gluck_louise-arts/
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http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1224.html
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From: susan a <doggo@>
Gosh. Thank you. That is just achingly beautiful. What a wonderful start to my week.
susan a