Kinnell

Okay. Most of you know me pretty well by now. You know that I carry on from time to time, and tend to exaggerate, and make wild claims unbacked by reason. Well put all that aside and listen closely. Galway Kinnell is one of our planet's greatest living poets. I promise.

Here is one I enjoy reading out loud.

--

"Field Notes" by Galway Kinnell, from Strong Is Your Hold

Field Notes

When we were out at dinner
last night and a dim mood
from the day hung on in me
that neither the quenelles
de brochet nor the Pignan
Châteauneuf-du-Pape
2000 could quite lift,
she disappeared and plucked
out of the air somewhere
some amusement or comfort
and, quickly back again,
laid it in our dinner talk.

When it was time to leave
and she scanned the restaurant
for the restroom, she went up
on her toes, like the upland plover,
and in the taxi home we kissed
a mint from the maitre d's desk
from my mouth to hers,
like cedar waxwings.

When I squished in bare feet
up to the bedroom, I found her
already dropped off, bedside lamp still on,
Theodore Xeonphon Barber's
The Human Nature of Birds
lying open face-down under her chin.

Gazing at her I saw
that she was gazing back,
having been sleeping awake
as the tree swallow does.

I went around the foot
of the bed and climbed in
and slid toward the side lined
with the warmth and softness
of herself, and we clasped each other
like no birds I know of.

Our cries that night were wild,
unhinged, not from here,
like the common loon's.