Rereading Old Writing

Rereading Old Writing

Looking back, the language scribbles.
What’s hidden, having been said?
Almost everything? Thrilling to think
There was a secret there somewhere,
A bird singing in the heart’s forest.

Two people sitting by a river;
Sunlight, shadow, some pretty trees;
Death dappling in the flowing water;
Beautiful to think about,
Romance inscrutable as music.

Out of the ground, in New Jersey, my mother’s
Voice, toneless, wailing–beseeching?
Crying out nothing? A winter vapor,
Out of the urn, rising in the yellow
Air, an ashy smear on the page.

The quiet room floats on the waters,
Buoyed up gently on the daylight;
The branch I can see stirs a little;
Nothing to think about; writing
Is a way of being happy.

What’s going to be in this place?
A person entering a room?
Saying something? Signaling?
Writing a formula on a blackboard.
Something not to be understood.

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Looking back, the language scribbles.
What’s hidden, having been said?
Almost everything? Thrilling to think
There was a secret there somewhere,
A bird singing in the heart’s forest.

Two people sitting by a river;
Sunlight, shadow, some pretty trees;
Death dappling in the flowing water;
Beautiful to think about,
Romance inscrutable as music.

Out of the ground, in New Jersey, my mother’s
Voice, toneless, wailing–beseeching?
Crying out nothing? A winter vapor,
Out of the urn, rising in the yellow
Air, an ashy smear on the page.

The quiet room floats on the waters,
Buoyed up gently on the daylight;
The branch I can see stirs a little;
Nothing to think about; writing
Is a way of being happy.

What’s going to be in this place?
A person entering a room?
Saying something? Signaling?
Writing a formula on a blackboard.
Something not to be understood.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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