I wander around down here almost every day. The willow is slower to leaf than the cottonwoods. I love all the colors in the water; they change with the sky. We have enough male redwing blackbirds in the willow to exceed possible nest sites; it's like the men's dormitory! Although this morning there was a lone female on the patio eating spilled birdseed. This year the males just about OWN the birdfeeder. This morning, one little goldfinch had the nerve to begin to dine. I could see the blackbird watching incredulously. And then he flew right at the feeder--goodbye, little yellow-brushed beauty.
My beloved Frank Bidart has a new book of poems out--and naturally, I already have it. Here's one taste:
GLUTTON
Ropes of my dead
grandmother's unreproducible
sausage, curing for weeks
on the front porch. My mother
thoroughly
Americanized, found them
vaguely shameful.
Now though I
taste and taste
I can't find that
taste I so loved as a kid.
Each thing generates the idea
of itself, the perfect thing that it
is of course, not---
once, a pear so breathtakingly
succulent I couldn't
breathe. I take back that
"of course"
It's got to be out there again,---
. . . I have tasted it.
from Metaphysical Dog; Poems, by Frank Bidart
Short as it is, there are many wonderful things about this besides the story! I particularly like the neat and attractive one-line/two-line structure which slows things down so one can "taste" the phrases one at a time. Bidart also makes full use of periods, commas, dashes (he uses a beautiful straight em dash that I haven't been able to reproduce on Blogger.) And be sure to notice something I once heard him call the "comma dash" which is just a little different in length than either of its components. And then of course Italics! It doesn't get much better than this! Good night, and good punctuation!
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