Mark Strand has written many poems I like, but this one seems particularly relevant as the year turns and the light begins to return.
Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
Here’s a poem by Mark Strand that deals with that old question of does the tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one is there to hear it–or more specifically the relation of the listener to the event itself.
On the eve of my fortieth birthday
I sat on the porch having a smoke
when out of the blue a man and a camel
happened by. Neither uttered a sound
at first, but as they drifted up the street
and out of town the two of them began to sing.
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— Continue reading “Mark Strand on Monday”