for Gerald Stern
At sixteen I was so vulnerable to every influence
That the overcast light, making the trash of addicts & sunbathers suddenly clearer
On the paths of the city park, seemed death itself spreading its shade
Over the leaves, the swan boats, the gum wrappers, and the quarreling ducks.
It took nothing more than a few clouds straying over the sun,
And I would begin falling through myself like an anvil or a girl’s comb or a feather
Dropped, tossed, or spiraling by pure chance down the silent air shaft of a warehouse,
The spiderweb in one fourth-floor window catching, in that moment, the sunset.
For in such a moment, to fall was to be simplified & pure,
With a neck snapped like a stem instead
Of whoever I turned out to be,
Wiping the window glass clear with one cuff
To gaze out at a two-hundred-year-old live oak tethering
The courtyard to its quiet,
The tree so old it has outlived even its life as a clich
(Larry Levis)
More Poetry from Larry Levis:
Larry Levis Poems based on Topics: Light, Nature, Cities, Disagreement & Quarelling- Elegy For Whatever Had A Pattern In It (Larry Levis Poems)
- As It Begins With A Brush Stroke On A Snare Drum (Larry Levis Poems)
- The Assimilation Of The Gypsies (Larry Levis Poems)
- Anastasia & Sandman (Larry Levis Poems)
- Elegy With A Bridle In Its Hand (Larry Levis Poems)
- Caravaggio: Swirl & Vortex (Larry Levis Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Light Poems, Nature Poems, Cities Poems, Disagreement & Quarelling PoemsBased on Keywords: gerald, spiderweb, simplified, spiraling, wrappers, addicts, clich, tethering