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What is this poem about?
Summary
Three short lines, and almost nothing else on the page. That bareness is part of the point: the poem feels as small and enclosed as the space it describes.
The ruthless beaks of the chickens, the ravenous appetites of the mother rodents, the giant erect cocksof the elephants congregating around the watering hole to exchange gossip.
Sitting on the curb across from Starbuckssmoking scooby and drinking cheap vodkawith Francis the homeless rock artist,I blink and the shops become a gender-neutralway to write Hebrew. I don't think you've everknown hard times, said my father, and I hopeyou never will. Penguins congregate aroundDuPont Circle Fountain for a flash mob.Let's get married, says Francis. Why not?I empty my wisdom into the ground behindChina Daily and say, Teach me to panhandle.The wind herds me into a diner where the cooksdon't think I understand Spanish. Esta haciendola poesra, they joke when I break wind.Later that night, Shakespeare visits me and tries
I learned -- at least -- what Home could be --How ignorant I had beenOf pretty ways of Covenant --How awkward at the HymnRound our new Fireside -- but for this --This pattern -- of the Way --Whose Memory drowns me, like the DipOf a Celestial Sea --What Mornings in our Garden -- guessed --What Bees -- for us -- to hum --With only Birds to interruptThe Ripple of our Theme --And Task for Both --When Play be done --Your Problem -- of the Brain --
The night is darkening round me,The wild winds coldly blow ;But a tyrant spell has bound me,And I cannot, cannot go.The giant trees are bendingTheir bare boughs weighed with snow ;The storm is fast descending,And yet I cannot go.Clouds beyond clouds above me,Wastes beyond wastes below ;But nothing drear can move me :I will not, cannot go.
The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,And the YearOn the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,Is lying.Come, Months, come away,From November to May,In your saddest array;Follow the bierOf the dead cold Year,And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knellingFor the Year;The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each goneTo his dwelling;