(W. W. Norton, 1995)
The Round
by Stanley Kunitz
Hear introductory remarks by Stanley
Kunitz (in RealAudio format).
Hear Stanley
Kunitz read "The Round" (in RealAudio format).
(For help, see a note about the audio.)
Also by Stanley Kunitz:
King of the River; The Quarrel; Touch Me.
Go to "A Visionary Poet at Ninety" in the June, 1996, issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
Go to:
An Audible Anthology
Poetry Pages
Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.
So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed . . ."
I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.
Copyright © 1995 by Stanley Kunitz. All rights reserved. Used by permission. from Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected
(W. W. Norton, 1995)
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |