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Monday 15 March 2010

Weldon Kees: Back


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File:Beach stones and sand.JPG





Much cry and little wool:
I have come back
As empty-handed as I went.

Although the woods were full,
And past the track
The heavy boughs were bent

Down to my knees with fruit
Ripe for a still life, I had meant
My trip as a search for stones.

But the beach was bare
Except for the drying bones
Of a fish, shells, an old wool

Shirt, a rubber boot,
A strip of lemon rind.
They were not what I had in mind:

It was merely stones.
Well, the days are full.
This day at least is spent.

Much cry and little wool:
I have come back
As empty-handed as I went.






Back: Weldon Kees, from Poems: 1947-1954

Beach stones and sand on the west coast of South Island, New Zealand: photo by Mezza, 2009

4 comments:

human being said...

i have a small round and flat stone found on the bank of a river when i was still in my teens...

it has been my philosophy teacher...

human being said...

stone
tone
one


hmmmm... lots of things in a stone...


this poem is one of those stones you find accidentally on a shore... and you keep it for a life time...

so is the photo...

TC said...

You might say that Weldon Kees himself was a lost stone of sorts.

He disappeared from human sight at the age of forty-one, in 1955.

His car was found parked near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Later sightings of him in Mexico were reported.

The curious legends of poets' lives...

. said...

ahhh, lost maybe but never empty handed.