"kinnell" poems
For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to ***** them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.
Galway Kinnell, “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” from Three Books. Copyright © 2002 by Galway Kinnell.
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 12:56 AM UTC
"Blackberry Eating" (Galway Kinnell)
Took my redneck self to early summer,
Late June, Montana sun, and shimmering humidity
Aboard a tractor droning over fields,
Uprooting green, turning the acres brown
Atop a table rimmed in badlands.
Remembering past Junes'
Berry thickets in cool ravines,
I left the tractor idling
To cross barbed wire,
To descend into cool trees.
June berries everywhere;
Blue-black sweetness weighted branches.
I stained my face and hands with plunder,
Then plundered and filled my upturned cap.
Grazing and grasping,
The copse's edge I turned
To meet a coyote on two legs
Berry browsing.
Who yelped, and who screamed?
At the top of the bank, I turned;
My cap and berries scattered,
The coyote's tail down as he left the scene.
Jan 22, 2021
Jan 22, 2021 at 11:03 AM UTC