Thursday 20 June 2019

James Wright – Collected Poems 1951

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 “In pasture where the leaf and wood
Were lorn of all delicious apple,
And underfoot a long and supple
Bough leaned down to dip in mud,
I came before the dark to stare
At a gray nest blown in a swirl,
As in the arm of a dead girl
Crippled and torn and laid bare.” (Wright, “The Quest” 1951, p.3).

“So, as you sleep, I seek your bed
And lay my careful, quiet ear
Among the nestings of your hair,
Against your tenuous, fragile head,
And hear the birds beneath your eyes
Stirrnig for birth, and know the world
Immeasurably alive and good,
Though bare as rifted paradise.” (Wright, “The Quest” 1951, p.3).




“Odor of fallen apple
Met you across the air,
The yellow globe lay purple
With bruises underfoot;
And, ravished out of thought,
Both of you had your share,
Sharp nose and watered mouth,
Of the dark tang of earth.

Yet, body, hold your humor
Away from the tempting tree,
The grass, the luring summer
That summon the flesh to fall.
Be glad of the green wall
You climbed across one day,
When winter stung with ice
That vacant paradise.” (Wright, “A fit against the country” 1951, p.8).


“Sweet earth, he ran and changed his shoes to go
Outside with other children through the fields.
He panted up the hills and swung from trees
Wild as a beast but for the human laughter
That tumbled like a cider down his cheeks.
Sweet earth, the summer has been gone for weeks,
And weary fish already sleeping under water
Below the banks where early acorns freeze.
Receive his flesh and keep it cured of colds.
Button his coats and scarf his throat from snow.” (Wright, “Arrangement with earth for three dead friends” 1951, p.17).


“The dark began to climb the empty hill.
(…)
October blowing dust, and summer gone
Into a dark barn, like a hiding lover.” (Wright, “Eleutheria” 1951, p.27).


“Except for walls of air the houses die
And fall…”  (Wright, “The Assignation” 1951, p.41).


“I walked, when love was gone,
Out of the human town,
For an easy breath of air.
Beyond a break in the trees,
Beyond the hangdog lives
Of old men, beyond girls:
The tall stars held their peace.
Looking in vain for lies
I turned, like earth, to go.
An owl’s wings hovered, bare
On the moon’s hills of snow.

And things were as they were.” (Wright, “A breath of air” 1951, p.69).



“A Girl Walking into a shadow

The mere trees cast no coolness where you go
Your small feet press no darkness into the grass.
I know your weight of days, and mourn I know.
All hues beneath the ground bare grayness.” (Wright, “A girl walking into a shadow” 1951, p.75).


“5. Dreaming
- No, no!
            And the dirtyneck boy starts crying and running
Without getting away, in a moment, on the streets.
            His hands,
He’s got something in his hands!
He doesn’t know what it is, but he runs to the dawn
With his hidden prize.
Endlessly beforehand, we know what his trophy is:
Something ignored, that the soul keeps awake in us.
We almost start to glitter inside his gold
With extravagant nakedness ….
- No, no!
            And the dirtyneck boy starts crying and running
Without getting away, in a moment, on the street.
The arm is strong, it could easily grab him …
The heart, also a beggar, lets him go.”  (Wright, “Ten Short Poems” 1951, p.92).


“Anacreon’s Grave

Here, where the rose opens,
Where delicate vines and bay leaves embrace each other,
Where the young dove is calling,
Where the little cricket is glad,
Whose grave it this,
That all the fods have planted and trimmed with
            living things?
This is Anacreon’s bed.
The happy poet enjoyed spring, summer, and autumn;
Now this small hill shelters him from the winter.” (Wright translating Goethe, “Anacreon’s Grave” 1951, p.108).


“That man standing there, who is he?
His path lost in the thicket,
Behind him the bushes
Lash back together,
The grass rises again,
The waste devours him.” (Wright, “Three stanzas from Goethe” 1951, p.112).


“Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and come son.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.” (Wright, “Lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s farm in pine island, Minnesota” 1951, p.114).


“Beginnings

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.” (Wright, “Beginning” 1951, p.127).

“I renounce the blinders of the magazines.
I want to lie down under a tree.
This is the only duty that is not death.
This is the everlasting happiness
Of small winds.” (Wright, “A prayer to escape from the market place” 1951, p.132).


“Rain

It is the sinking of things.” (Wright, “Rain” 1951, p.133).


 “I woke
Just about daybreak, and fell back
In a drowse.
A clean leaf from one of the new cedars
Has blown in through the open window.
How long ago a huge shadow of wings pondering and hovering leaned down
To comfort my face.
I don’t care who loved me.
Somebody did, so I let myself alone.” (Wright, “Poem to a brown cricket” 1951, p.188).


“Work be damned, the kind
Of poetry I want
Is to lie down with my love.

All she is
Is a little ripple of rain
On a small waterfall.” (Wright, “Many of our waters: variations on a poem by a black child” 1951, p.209).