The Middlewesterner

“Poetry,” he said,
“is in the ear (and

by God you've got two
of them) and in the mouth.”

*

“Practice hard
and play free -

poetry happens
when you're not trying.”

*

“The value of
poetry?

I don't know,”
he said.

“The sun comes up
whether I

write or not.”

“So, then,” they asked,
“why do you

keep at it?”
“I cannot,” he said,

“put the cork
back in the bottle.”

*

“Like plums,
sometimes

the weight
of poems

breaks the branch.”

*

“The blessings of travel
are many, not the least

of which is this
urge to poetry.”

“The measure can be
anything, but must
be regular, some-

how. Irregular
measures are toothless.
You might as well write

prose.”

*

“Empty
your mind. Trust
it will

be filled.”

*

“You do not
believe in
darkness, nor

do you trust
the light. There
is not much

I can give you.”

“Why write
when there's nothing
to say but

Aha! and
Look at this!”

*

“How to tell
exactly the truth

when truth is so
inexactly?”

*

“How full is this moment?
I will write you a book.
I will write you another one.”

Whiskey-wind in my beard.
Somewhere the sun is shining.

River road, or river
in this high water?

Mountain Lake
in Minnesota?
Mountain? As if.

Mountain does not even
put its foothills here.

Wrecked upon
a lonely shoal -

hopelessness.

The loneliness
of wind in

an empty tree.

“So many words
compete for nothing.”

*

“Gravity is
what undoes us.

Without gravity,
no time.

Without time,
we would be gods.”

*

“If you love
something,
set it free

and wait for it
to come back.
Try this test:

give me
your money.”

“I make notes as
fast as I can

and still the days
go flying past.”

*

“You not only need to
stay awake,” he said,

“you need to pay attention.”

*

“Water. Ice. Sky. Night. The stars.
What is it you don't understand?”

Before landing on water,
the geese, dumping air.

Where
the tree was

the wind's song
unsung.

The wind,
the lifting

of leaves,
the light,

the lightness
of things

this evening.

Leaves falling like
an autumn sadness.

COUSIN HAWK

First the shadows of

your

talons

meet the mouse.

COUSIN STUMP

Where

more of

you

once stood

I

sit.

COUSIN STONE

I hear you

speak

too

slowly for

my

ears.

Dried rushes
in the low ground.

Higher stands
the corn, ready

for harvest.
The sky is wide

enough for both.

“No,” he said, “I can't
write long poems

with these short
fingers.”

*

“No rule except the thing,
apprehension of the thing,
and rendering of the apprehension

exactly.”

*

“If I were
useful

I would be
a tin cup

near the water.”

“In the beauty
of this moment

either you want to
believe or you don't,

but there is no
not knowing.”

*

“Writer's block?
Skin yourself and sit.

Something will come.”

*

“Nothing like
ninety miles an hour
to clear the mind

and show you
what's what.”

Except for darkness,
the stars.

Deer in the autumn field,
that color.

Fog, down low,
where the sun

won't go.

Hawk above
the hovering fog -

marsh and the
morning.

Cranes -
the sudden

suprise.

“Breath is enough
meaning

for one poem.”

*

“It's not that you finish,
it's how you land.”

*

“Sometimes nothing
and sometimes

I understand the difference.”

“Some poems make you wonder
which shell the pea's under.”

*

“If you're not ready
and you're not patient

you've already
failed.”

*

“How long
do you wait
for inspiration?”
they asked.

“Until,”
he said.

This
morning

the ponderous
fog

remembers
the sun,

remembers
the birds,

now gone.