poetry pocket: sunrise, louise glück.

and if you missed a day, there was always the next/ and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter/ the hills weren’t going anywhere, the thyme and rosemary kept coming back/ the sun kept rising

you can read Glück discuss her writing process here. as a Creator, her process is fascinating to bare witness to:

“When I’m trying to put a poem or a book together, I feel like a tracker in the forest following a scent, tracking only step to step. It’s not as though I have plot elements grafted onto the walls elaborating themselves. Of course, I have no idea what I’m tracking, only the conviction that I’ll know it when I see it.”

and about the way in which that we “beamoan… [is'] actually unexplored territory” here:

“I was moaning to my sister about losing words, about the deterioration of my vocabulary. I said to her, “How am I ever going to write when I’m losing words?” and she said, “You’ll write about losing words.” And I thought, “Wow, good, I’ll write about having no speech, about deterioration.” Then it was the most exciting thing, a wealth of material—everything I had been bemoaning was actually unexplored territory.”

and her abiding trust in the hours to carry her:

“Yes. Friends, conversation, gardens. Daily life. It’s what we have. I believe in the world. I trust it to provide me.”

recalling the wonderful Words of her piece Crossroads:

Crossroads
Louise Glück

”My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer
I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar,
like what I remember of love when I was young —

love that was so often foolish in its objectives
but never in its choices, its intensities
Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised —

My soul has been so fearful, so violent;
forgive its brutality.
As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,

not wishing to give offense
but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:

it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.”

and you can listen to her talk about the delight of working on “a little crumby thing” here.

love,

ars poetica.