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A New Selected Poems
A New Selected Poems | Galway Kinnell
3 posts | 4 read | 3 to read
That Silent Evening I will go back to that silent evening when we lay together and talked in silent voices, while outside slow lumps of soft snow fell, hushing as they got near the ground, with a fire in the room, in which centuries of tree went up in continuous ghost-giving-up, without a crackle, into morning light. Not until what hastens went slower did we sleep. When we got home we turned and looked back at our tracks twining out of the woods, where the branches we brushed against let fall puffs of sparkling snow, quickly, in silence, like stolen kisses, and where the scritch scritch scritch among the trees, which is the sound that dies inside the sparks from the wedge when the sledge hits it off center telling everything inside it is fire, jumped to a black branch, puffed up but without arms and so to our eyes lonesome, and yet also--how can we know this?--happy! in shape of chickadee. Lying still in snow, not iron-willed, like railroad tracks, willing not to meet until heaven, but here and there treading slubby kissing stops, our tracks wobble across the snow their long scratch. So many things that happen here are really little more, if even that, than a scratch, too. Words, in our mouths, are almost ready, already, to bandage the one whom the scritch scritch scritch, meaning if how when we might lose each other, scratches scratches scratches from this moment to that. Then I will go back to that silent evening, when the past just managed to overlap the future, if only by a trace, and the light doubles and casts through the dark a sparkling that heavens the earth.
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VioletBramble
A New Selected Poems | Galway Kinnell
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From Blackberry Eating

...and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched or broughamed, many lettered, one syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy black language of blackberry eating in late September.

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VioletBramble
A New Selected Poems | Galway Kinnell
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On this snowy morning near the East river I happened upon this poem in my current poetry read.

from: The River That is East

A man stands on the pier
He has long since stopped wishing his heart were full
Or his life dear to him
He watches the snowfall hitting the dirty water
He thinks: Beautiful Beautiful
If I were a gull I would be one with white wings
I would fly out over the water, explode, and
Be beautiful snow hitting the dirty water.

40 likes2 comments
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batsy
A New Selected Poems | Galway Kinnell
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One of my favourite poems. Read it over and over again during a bad time and its words were everything.

"though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness
...
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing" ?❤️

#animal #PoetryMatters @LazyDays

TrishB How lovely, not read before 💕 6y
saresmoore That is beautiful. 6y
sisilia Ooohhhh I love this ❤️ 6y
See All 21 Comments
LazyDays 💙 6y
quietlycuriouskate This one means a lot to me, too. 💕 6y
Lindy Thank you for posting this. Love it so much. 🌹 6y
batsy @River_Voice ❤️❤️ 6y
batsy @Lindy You're welcome 💕 6y
merelybookish Have not read much Kinnell but this is beautiful! Thank you! 6y
batsy @merelybookish My pleasure! I love it so much. 6y
Redwritinghood Hadn‘t seen this one before. It‘s wonderful. 6y
Reggie This was beautiful. Sometimes it‘s easy to forget. 6y
ValerieAndBooks Love this!! 6y
batsy @Redwritinghood @Reggie @ReadOrDieRachel @ValerieAndBooks Glad to share this with everyone ❤️❤️ 6y
Faibka Lovely! 6y
batsy @Faibka It's so comforting and true ❤️ 6y
ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled I love this! Ive never read this before. Thanks for posting 6y
batsy @ErickaS_Flyleafunfurled Totally my pleasure to share this one ❤️ 6y
90 likes21 comments