and the single reality of the closely lined buildings, casa after casa, reflected, like a young man's convictions (shaky, upside-down, blurred, like yellow-and-white flesh, are somehow steady and understood, sure as the hand of a housekeeper who has been with the family for nearly a century) is a reality uncelebrated except in bad photographs by determined tourists. That's how important the long dark point of this simplicity is. Is there progress? Do you mean, uh, toward recognition? Yes, eyes about to open to the occasion, and it is bending with the wind, where everything suddenly might be seen, as it breaks with a snap, and the joy of it, transformed as understanding, stays on clearly centered and smelling like sap from a young branch. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOOKS AND EYES by KAREN SWENSON IN THE SHADOWS: 20 by DAVID GRAY (1838-1861) GYPSY MAN by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW AUSPEX by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL THE RUINS OF CORINTH by ANTIPATER OF SIDON SONG OF SOLOMON 2: 10-13. SPRING by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |