ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

sequence #
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20

  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 16

SPRING WET
so much rain...


WHAT WE FOUND
as held in a mouth...


READ RELAX WRITE
bees stumble out...


AGREEMENT
The cabdriver walking home from his ...


CALLING CROW
his wings keep moving...


untitled
the wood door held open in my hand...


REAL APRIL
what we call reality is a...


GARDENING NOTES
the opening where...


THE POEM
I was thinking standing at the top of the hill...


THREE RELATED POEMS
the moon's "clear fields"...


untitled
let me know what it's like...


HERE FILL THIS PART OUT
and I'll fill in the rest...


7/30/08
mud my friend from youth...


LIVING THINGS GIVE BACK WHAT THEY GATHER
grassy field seen through the tree stems...


LISTENING TO THE STORM
water...


THE WAY
feet on the way that flutters before us...


THE SAME
the earth has borrowed everything...


8/10/08
the worrying approaches of a hurricane or a birthday...


8/20/08
the marks on us...


THANKS TO THE MAKERS OF CUNEIFORM
the damp clay you marked...


FIRE
when and if the sparks...


USEFUL
the tremor is useful for mixing things...


A SINGLE CLOUD IN A DRY SEASON
the cloud passing east at sunset...


EARLY HOUR READING
the cicadas have been singing all night...


"ABOVE US ONLY SKY"
at night the activity...


ACCEPTS
summer comes to rest...


untitled
the rush of air overhead as I sleep...


MOONLIGHT
light streaming in every window...


ALLEGORICAL SCENE
the translators...


ME WALKING IN NATURE
Looking in all directions, no one to be seen: I am alone. Here ...


ME AND IT
I decide to set it aside for a few days...


TRILLION
bewilderment in the trillions...


10/10/08
no pride no complaints...


10/10/08, ALSO
three quarter moon...


WRITING WITH THE COLD HAND
a couple of pages back:...


HOW I'M THINKING NOW
half the day spent avoiding...


COMPARING
the way the trembling travels through me...


2/26/09
I don't have to try hard to act as though...


THESE POEMS
a poem for any day of the year ...


DESIRE
The circumference of the earth now widened enormously, a new...


I WATCH
a fire of dead branches...


ALL OF OUR LIFE IS TO REPEAT
all of our life is to repeat...


I INVESTIGATE
having touched many things...


I WAKE BEFORE DAWN
again...


SOMEONE WHISPERS IN THE EMPEROR'S EAR
and he knows what to say next...


TO AN ANT DROWNED IN HONEY
how gold...


THE LOWER AND THE HIGHER
when the lower lifts ...


EPISODE FROM A NARRATIVE
their morning...


WHAT HAS BEEN DONE
every stroke went through my hand first...


TRAVELS WITH
all of you take me with you...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM MERWIN
that hand moving a touch towards me...


WAS I
I had been beautiful once...


FAIR TRADE
the creek crossing under the road...


SAYINGS
all these roads bent here as if finding their reason lose it...


PARALLEL LIVES
oh ye of little wings...


SUMMARY TO THIS POINT
age a point...


MUSICIAN
the voice he has...

A:

I think it's that I always had the feeling that what is really true,
really valuable is hidden in small, insignificant places.  You know,
like when you're walking someplace and you notice at the back of a
building, right where things necessary to whatever goes on in there
are carried in, a place that's been let go--tall weeds, grass gone
to seed, the steps a bit crumbled, trash or discarded objects left to
sit and make little decomposing sculptures--that sort of thing. I
don't know if I'm saying this right. Anyway, these places or things,
no one notices them, but they've got these bright little flowers
showing, or an odd combination of shapes and lines, there's something
vital there and also something that's failed and is passing, forgotten.
Kind of a bit of history that no one cares about, but it contains the
only wisdom we need, the only comfort available. Again, I think I'm
not saying this well, and maybe I've wandered far from the subject.
Anyway, it's this impulse I have to value what's small, thrown away,
forgotten, but composing its own secret, highly important space.  So
maybe I have this need to leave things short or broken and to discard
them, meaning leave them where they can be found but not where they
call attention to themselves, and my vanity makes me think that by
this means I've given them an importance, a significant insignificance
that some more public and complete construction would lack.