Still Another Pelican in the Breadbox by Kenneth Patchen

Author:Kenneth Patchen [Patchen, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Poetry, General, Authors, American
Publisher: Pig Iron Press
Published: 1980-01-30T13:00:00+00:00

THE SKATERS

It was very still and lonely now beside the river. If any human had been here this hour he would have remarked the strangeness of this winter’s night, would have sensed perhaps the pulsing loneliness of this thing created of night and snow and loneliness.

But he could not have felt the wonder and beauty without wishing to somehow arrest and make fast and secure the part of himself that would feel drawn to the something here.

If you have watched a bird flying away in the dusk over your head on the mission birds have at this evening time you will better understand how anyone in the night beside this river would feel hurt and frightened at being only what he was. He would feel only the sense of his corporal presence and would surely realize it insufficient to the knowledge needed to become a part of this thing of night and loneliness.

He would have been a liver in cities . . . the definite little men who live in little cities built to a giant’s plan.

I would not speak of that . . . we are not snakes to crawl from out that which we are into what we cannot ever be.

I am trying to say that the loneliness and desperate wisdom of the river this winter night would be an act and an achievement not needing the presence of any human to call it into being.

I spoke of the bird because I myself could not visualize the river in its impersonal life tonight and I wished to set up something that you as well as I could understand, hoping in that way to find the courage to go on to the saying of the thing that the river is.

I thought to say it so you would understand but I cannot. What I have to say has little to do with what the river is under its snow and ice tonight. I want to tell you of the death today of someone I love.

After thinking of many ways in which it might be beautifully told I finally decided to tell it in this way. You will understand that I do not feel about it in this way, but I have already told you that the mystery of the river is not to be in anything which I may say to you of it . . . it may be that only one such as myself who has had a direct communication from the river could understand what there are no words to tell of.

I thought of doing it in this way. I would write the history of this river, a history covering one day. Early this morning, I would say, there was a light fall of snow; later in the day a thick blanket of snow fell covering and obscuring all traces of the life which had moved over the ice, and finally, I would go on, toward evening the snow ceased to fall and what there was of

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