Wild Gratitude
Page 6
Is an outline of blue snow. Cars,
Too, are rimmed and motionless
Under a thin blanket smoothed down
By the smooth maternal palm
Of the wind. So thanks to the
Blue morning, to the blue spirit
Of winter, to the soothing blue gift
Of powdered snow! And soon
A few scattered lights come on
In the houses, a motor coughs
And starts up in the distance, smoke
Raises its arms over the chimneys.
Soon the trees suck in the darkness
And breathe out the light
While black drapes open in silence.
And as I turn home where
I know you are already awake,
Wandering slowly through the house
Searching for me, I can suddenly
Hear my own footsteps crunching
The simple astonishing news
That we are here,
Yes, we are still here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications where these poems—many of which have been substantially revised—first appeared:
Antaeus: “Indian Summer,” “Recovery”
The Antioch Review: “Three Journeys”
The Atlantic: “Fast Break”
Crazyhorse: “The Village Idiot,” “Paul Celan: A Grave and Mysterious Sentence,” “The Emaciated Horse”
Fiction International: “Excuses,” “Unhappy Love Poem”
The Georgia Review: “The Night Parade”
Grand Street: “In a Polish Home for the Aged (Chicago, 1983)”
Kayak: “Sleepwatch”
Memphis State Review: “The Secret”
Michigan Quarterly Review: “Leningrad (1941–1943)”
The Missouri Review: “Omen,” “The Skokie Theatre”
The Nation: “In the Middle of August,” “Dino Campana and the Bear” copyright © 1981, 1982 The Nation Associates, Inc.
National Forum: “Prelude of Black Drapes,” “In Spite of Everything, the Stars”
The New Republic: “Wild Gratitude”
The New Yorker: “I Need Help,” “Fall,” “Dawn Walk”
The Ontario Review: “Curriculum Vitae (1937)”
Ploughshares: “Commuters”
Poetry: “Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad (1925),” “A Dark Hillside” (under the title “Moving Toward a Blue Unicorn”), “Fever,” “Poor Angels”
Shenandoah: “The White Blackbird”
Skywriting: “Ancient Signs” (under the title “My Grandfather Loved Storms”)
The epigraph is from W. H. Auden, Selected Poems: New Edition (New York: Vintage, 1979), p. 89.
I wish to express my gratitude to the National Endowment for the Arts and to Wayne State University for their support during the writing of this book. “Dawn Walk” is in memory of Gertrude Landay (1916–1979) and Donald Landay (1914–1977). “The Night Parade” is dedicated to Susan Stewart. “Curriculum Vitae (1937)” is for Lawrence Joseph.
Special thanks to Alice Quinn for her encouragement and generosity.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edward Hirsch has published six books of poems: For the Sleepwalkers (1981), Wild Gratitude (1986), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994), On Love (1998), and Lay Back the Darkness (2003). He has also written three prose books, including How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national best-seller, and The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (2002). A frequent contributor to leading magazines and periodicals, including The New Yorker, DoubleTake, and The American Poetry Review, he also writes the Poet’s Choice column for the Washington Post Book World. He has received the Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He teaches at the University of Houston.
ALSO BY EDWARD HIRSCH
POETRY
Lay Back the Darkness (2003)
On Love (1998)
Earthly Measures (1994)
The Night Parade (1989)
For the Sleepwalkers (1981)
PROSE
The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (2002)
How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999)
Responsive Reading (1999)
EDITOR
Transforming Vision: Writers on Art (1994)