#schuyler
Poem [This beauty that I see]
by James Schuyler^
1923 –1991
This beauty that I see
—the sun going down.
scours the entangled
and lightly henna
withies and the wind
whips them as it
would ship a cloud—
is passing so swiftly
into night. A moon,
full and flat, and stars
a freight train passing
passing it is the sea
and not a train. This
beauty that collects
dry leaves in pools
and pockets and goes
freezingly, just able
still to swiftly flow
it goes, it goes.
From Collected Poems by James Schuyler. Copyright © 1993 by James Schuyler
Oct 20, 2025
Oct 20, 2025 at 10:00 AM UTC
I skip, across a streaming, upon random~laid
flat and comfortable flat flagstone stepping stones,
from poet to poet, color to color, poem to poem,
Auden to Whitman, Schuyler to
myself, a dingaling notion, an errant word,
the here to there, all randoms, yet,
oval chain linked all,
a question posed, an answer unknown,
a reference to an old Italian myth,
and there, and here, a body,
comes to rest,
& also,
comes to rest…
<>
led not by the nose, but the single fingered
tip that guides across a landscape patterned
painting, lost but never a loser, each implants,
each imbibes, and the H&H^ alternatively
rumbles, pounds, vibrato burns erratically,
and the difference between a life in love,
and a life in poetry,
is not a line dividing,
but a path combining,
and the only sign
upon the road,
is never a reddened "stop!"
always just a soft lavender, so tender, inquiring,
requiring, deep thoughts and reckless abandonment,
the only guide inspired when ecstatic adrift in
a season, a sea, any one of nature's designed
unlimited
schemata's of vista creations,
is this, simply stated:
What?
<>
postscript
6:27 Sabbath Sep 27
nyc
after a sunrise glorious, where
the windows eastern facing
make an irresistible irrational
pattern of golden yellow reflecting,
mirrors, and
after reading much,
and so I too, reflect, vista, vista,
what do you see, I see…What?
after reading a poem by James Schuyler,
entitled (yes, we are)
"What"^^
Sep 27, 2025
Sep 27, 2025 at 7:47 AM UTC