Nothing by Design

Author:Mary Jo Salter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Literary Collections, Poetry, General, Family & Relationships, American, Women Authors
ISBN: 9780385349802
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2013-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

IV

LIGHTWEIGHTS

T. S. LIGHTWEIGHT AND EZRA PROFOUND

A meditation upon “The Waste Land”

Give Ezra his due credit

for that amazing edit.

Still, T.S. is the one who said it.

OUT OF THE WOODS

What is it about the forest?

Why can’t we give it a rest?

All those writers taking

soulful walks in the woods:

good heavens, it’s been done.

Step out and get some sun!

Dante did, after getting the goods

in the darkest glades from Virgil;

but what about Longfellow

sadly tagging along—

or ten steps back, at the distance

of a translated insistence?

Sure, I admire the flight paths

of the hawkmoths of Nabokov,

who pinned them down in a knockoff

of the hawthorn path in Proust—

but if I must lose my way,

I’ll take the route of song:

give me Sondheim any day.

I’ve had my fill of Frost,

proud again to be lost,

coming upon his fork

in the road for the millionth time,

or stumbling upon woodpiles

of somebody else’s work.

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