A little bit of Culture...  Poetry from soc.culture.irish

Poetry Worldwide  (all else....)

Posted by Tony Dermody
on:    21 February 2000

This one is by John Hollander and is called "Swan and Shadow". Hollander writes stuff that is sometimes as indecipherable as the REM's "Swan, Swan, Hummingbird". However, I quite like this, and it's fairly understandable. It even has a picture for those who find this sort of impressionism difficult to visualise.

I've taken it from "The Norton Anthology of Poetry". I've also gone to some lengths to get every word right. I hope I've been successful.

Here goes:

Swan and Shadow
John Hollander

The Norton Anthology of Poetry
edited by Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter & Jon Stallworthy
New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996

                       Dusk
                    Above the
               Water hang the
                         loud
                        flies
                        Here
                       O so
                      gray
                     then
                    What                    A pale signal will appear
                   When                Soon before its shadow fades
                  Where              Here in this pool of opened eye
                  In us     No Upon us As at the very edges
                   of where we take shape in the dark air
                    this object bares its image awakening
                      ripples of recognition that will
                         brush darkness up into light
even after this bird this hour both drift by atop the perfect sad instant now
                         already passing out of sight
                      toward yet-untroubled reflection
                    this image bears its object darkening
                   into memorial shades Scattered bits of
                  light     No of water Or something across
                  water       Breaking up No Being regathered
                   soon         Yet by then a swan will have
                    gone             Yes out of mind into what
                     vast
                      pale
                       hush
                        of a
                       place
                        past
              sudden dark as
                   if a swan
                      sang
 


--- The End ---

Questions? Comments? -K. E. Dennis

Poetry Worldwide  (all else....)

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