Poem from the May 12 New Yorker:
One Can Miss Mountains
and pine. One
can dismiss
a whisper’s
revelations
and go on as
before as if
everything were
perfectly fine.
One does. One
loses wonder
among stores
of things.
One can even miss
the basso boom
of the ocean’s
rumpus room
and its rhythm.
A man can leave
this earth
and take nothing
–not even
longing–along
with him.
Good poem. High five.
I read The New Yorker every week, but don’t remember that poem. Senility at 35 is a damned thing.
High fives all around. Especially for these lines: “One / loses wonder / among stores / of things.”
One certainly does.
At first I read this as a recipe: “One can miss moments”. Maybe I should eat lunch BEFORE I browse blogs…
Awesome poems. Makes me want to find other poems by Mr. Boss.
Other poems by Mr. Boss: http://www.toddbosspoet.com/Poems/Poems.html
My fave is “The Hush of the Very Good.”
Beautiful. Below is a favorite of mine, by Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks. I hope you enjoy it:
-And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes
on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday –
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come –
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went into Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front-room floor to the
ink-spotted table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and teac
And chocolate chip cookies –
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other-
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
They you may tell,
They I may believe
You have forgotten me well.