I was flipping through the New Yorker and I found this great poem. I usually don't get too excited over the poetry in the magazine -- sometimes they lay flat, sonorous society-like, or un-easy to understand. I like a greasy garage, a fishing hole, a woman with a strong heart and a tremble for something new. An island with snow. Iceland, right? Or Montana. Who wouldn't agree that the Wind River is all by itself, set out like palm trees and sand, only bottom river prairie lands and tepees of snow and rock instead.

The mind catches what it wants, what means something to it, and lets the others go. That is my only explanation for all that I have forgotten, and the vivid green wood boat, the rusted moped, tray of boiled crustaceans, North Inlet, all the peculiar events that I recall, ones that do not lead to keen business knowledge, numbers or arithmetic; rather, memories that make a life. So, I wonder, is life worth living if you recall none of it? Is the moment enough? Would you attend a concert if you knew you would never recall the event, just for the pleasure of listening.

I remember looking out of the window of a holiday inn and seeing and old couple drive off towards Estes, Colordao, very slow like old people drive. They had breakfast in a bag and coffees. Windows up. Cold fall morning. Who will transcribe their memories -- the perfect time of an early sun up through mountains. What is the feeling of a life lived in knowledge that one day all memories will be forgotten. What is the feeling of a faith that someone will remember. I would rather take a walk through the woods. I am tired of wondering.

I spent the weekend fishing in the creek for bream, walking with the dog along a tupelo cypress swamp and scaring up wild turkey, bobcat and deer. It is good to be alive in the Fall of 2009.

--

THE HOUSE by Richard Wilbur

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes

For a last look at that white house she knew

In sleep alone, and held no title to,

And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

 

What did she tell me of that house of hers?

White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;

A widow’s walk above the bouldered shore;

Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.

 

Is she now there, wherever there may be?

Only a foolish man would hope to find

That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.

Night after night, my love, I put to sea.