Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Thursday 7 April 2011

Robert Creeley: Love

.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Sarcoramphus-papa-king-vulture-closeup-0a.jpg

King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa), head closeup (the white feather on its beak probably from its belly or under the wings), Berlin Zoological Gardens: photo by Adamantios, June 2007


Nothing is without place,
in mind, in physical apprehension --

or if "a dagger of the mind" is the purpose,
hold on to it for dear life, or else kill somebody.

Just when I thought I had it made, I lost it.
Just when I knew what to do, I was an old man.

You hear that bird sing in the tree there,
you still know what a tree is?

Love is a place, not a person, love is
a weather of time, a convenience to absent sorrows.

But talk is the cheapest of all, means what it wants to,
waits up for no one, always goes home alone.

Robert Creeley (1927-2005): Love, from Places, 1990


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Nyctea-scandiaca-snowy-owl-0a.jpg

Snowy Owl (Bubo spondiacus), Berlin Zoological Gardens: photo by Adamantios, 2008

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

If anything should make me believe in a god it's that vulture; you couldn't make it up.

TC said...

Artur, do you know Johnson's fable of the Vulture, from his Idler series?

I haven't decided which is prettier, the Griffon Vulture or the King Vulture.

(I've never imagined God had that good an imagination.)

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Nothing is without place,
in mind, in physical apprehension --

. . .

Just when I thought I had made it, I lost it.
Just when I knew what to do, I was an old man.


4.8

grey of clouds in sky above black plane
of ridge, silver of planet below branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

in place, by the right side
analogous to that is

system of coordinates, will
also be, since light

silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
whiteness of tern circling toward point

snowbird said...

Thanks

TC said...

And thanks to you, Stephen and snowbird.

From space, snow alighting makes the blue planet silver.

For a minute. I bet.

And this too is love, in a god's eye.

snowbird said...

to see... "and I say to you, you are all gods..."... ah! but to love!!!!

TC said...

And yet... dare we say the sublimely beautiful Snowy Owl loves everything it touches?

Anonymous said...

Tom, thanks for the Samuel Johnson, I hadn't read it. I love the mental image of man as a vegetable with the power of motion.

snowbird said...

The photo - light touching the snowy owl - the mouse - the snowy owl consumes the light - and all is light and light is love for in light we understand and in understanding we touch the snowy owl...the dying mouse... the photograph you have sent...

TC said...

Man as a phototropic vegetable with the power of motion moves toward the light... but is pulled back... by man, a vegetable with the power of motion.

But perhaps this trend can be reversed?