Wild Gratitude Read online

  Is an outline of blue snow. Cars,

  Too, are rimmed and motionless

  Under a thin blanket smoothed down

  By the smooth maternal palm

  Of the wind. So thanks to the

  Blue morning, to the blue spirit

  Of winter, to the soothing blue gift

  Of powdered snow! And soon

  A few scattered lights come on

  In the houses, a motor coughs

  And starts up in the distance, smoke

  Raises its arms over the chimneys.

  Soon the trees suck in the darkness

  And breathe out the light

  While black drapes open in silence.

  And as I turn home where

  I know you are already awake,

  Wandering slowly through the house

  Searching for me, I can suddenly

  Hear my own footsteps crunching

  The simple astonishing news

  That we are here,

  Yes, we are still here.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications where these poems—many of which have been substantially revised—first appeared:

  Antaeus: “Indian Summer,” “Recovery”

  The Antioch Review: “Three Journeys”

  The Atlantic: “Fast Break”

  Crazyhorse: “The Village Idiot,” “Paul Celan: A Grave and Mysterious Sentence,” “The Emaciated Horse”

  Fiction International: “Excuses,” “Unhappy Love Poem”

  The Georgia Review: “The Night Parade”

  Grand Street: “In a Polish Home for the Aged (Chicago, 1983)”

  Kayak: “Sleepwatch”

  Memphis State Review: “The Secret”

  Michigan Quarterly Review: “Leningrad (1941–1943)”

  The Missouri Review: “Omen,” “The Skokie Theatre”

  The Nation: “In the Middle of August,” “Dino Campana and the Bear” copyright © 1981, 1982 The Nation Associates, Inc.

  National Forum: “Prelude of Black Drapes,” “In Spite of Everything, the Stars”

  The New Republic: “Wild Gratitude”

  The New Yorker: “I Need Help,” “Fall,” “Dawn Walk”

  The Ontario Review: “Curriculum Vitae (1937)”

  Ploughshares: “Commuters”

  Poetry: “Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad (1925),” “A Dark Hillside” (under the title “Moving Toward a Blue Unicorn”), “Fever,” “Poor Angels”

  Shenandoah: “The White Blackbird”

  Skywriting: “Ancient Signs” (under the title “My Grandfather Loved Storms”)

  The epigraph is from W. H. Auden, Selected Poems: New Edition (New York: Vintage, 1979), p. 89.

  I wish to express my gratitude to the National Endowment for the Arts and to Wayne State University for their support during the writing of this book. “Dawn Walk” is in memory of Gertrude Landay (1916–1979) and Donald Landay (1914–1977). “The Night Parade” is dedicated to Susan Stewart. “Curriculum Vitae (1937)” is for Lawrence Joseph.

  Special thanks to Alice Quinn for her encouragement and generosity.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Edward Hirsch has published six books of poems: For the Sleepwalkers (1981), Wild Gratitude (1986), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994), On Love (1998), and Lay Back the Darkness (2003). He has also written three prose books, including How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national best-seller, and The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (2002). A frequent contributor to leading magazines and periodicals, including The New Yorker, DoubleTake, and The American Poetry Review, he also writes the Poet’s Choice column for the Washington Post Book World. He has received the Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He teaches at the University of Houston.

  ALSO BY EDWARD HIRSCH

  POETRY

  Lay Back the Darkness (2003)

  On Love (1998)

  Earthly Measures (1994)

  The Night Parade (1989)

  For the Sleepwalkers (1981)

  PROSE

  The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (2002)

  How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999)

  Responsive Reading (1999)

  EDITOR

  Transforming Vision: Writers on Art (1994)