The Rav of Northern White Russia declined, in his youth, to learn the language of birds, because the extraneous did not interest him; nevertheless when he grew old it was found he understood them anyway, having listened well, and as it is said, 'prayed with the bench and the floor.' He used what was at hand -- as did Angel Jones of Mold, whose meditations were sewn into coats and britches. Well, I would like to make, thinking some line still taut between me and them, poems direct as what the birds said, hard as a floor, sound as a bench, mysterious as the silence when the tailor would pause with his needle in the air | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PURSUIT OF THE WORD by ROBERT FROST HIGH PLAINS RAG by JAMES GALVIN THE SACRAL DREAMS OF RAMON FERNANDEZ by JAMES GALVIN THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE by JAMES GALVIN THE FLAME LIGHTS UP by DAVID IGNATOW DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA: 4. THE LOTTERY GIRL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ON A PALMETTO by SIDNEY LANIER |