Walk the rails under a high blue sky. Find the sag in the leaning fence, and step--carefully--over rusted wire. Follow a peninsula of blond grasses through a lake of loam, and come, at last, to the timber's edge where gray branches trace the sky and rose hips curl near purple canes.
You will love Kenyon! I have her collection _Otherwise_ -- the last one that she put together as she was dying of leukemia. Her husband, Donald Hall, has a collection _Without_, which is the loss of his wife. Reading them together is a marvelously poignant experience.
I read a little of her poetry on the internet and was delighted! Thanks for telling me about her and her husband's collections. I would like to read them together, as you have done.
Also, I have decided it is good for poets to live on farms. She and her husband did, and so did Robert Frost--so there you have it!
One of my favorite passages in the psalms. I believe that the poet Jane Kenyon (1947-95) used it as the epigraph to one of her books.
ReplyDeleteNow I'll have to look her up!
ReplyDeleteYou will love Kenyon! I have her collection _Otherwise_ -- the last one that she put together as she was dying of leukemia. Her husband, Donald Hall, has a collection _Without_, which is the loss of his wife. Reading them together is a marvelously poignant experience.
ReplyDeleteI read a little of her poetry on the internet and was delighted! Thanks for telling me about her and her husband's collections. I would like to read them together, as you have done.
DeleteAlso, I have decided it is good for poets to live on farms. She and her husband did, and so did Robert Frost--so there you have it!
There you go -- one more sign you are meant to be the poet you are becoming! :)
Delete