Delightful. And delicious. Attention to the natural world always pays off. Endlessly, I’m handed just the thing that helps me address whatever confanglement I’ve created or encountered.
I loved that image—savoring that last infinitesimal smudge of butter. Thank you for taking us on that brief, bracing journey back in time. Reading it, I was reminded of another piece from that season of your writing that has stayed with me all these years: “Molting,” in River Teeth. I still see you there, splitting wood, and hear the words you recalled from the Gospel of Thomas—“Smite the rock and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and there am I.” Ever since, I’ve found it hard to split wood—or read you—without listening for what might be revealed in the grain.
Delightful. And delicious. Attention to the natural world always pays off. Endlessly, I’m handed just the thing that helps me address whatever confanglement I’ve created or encountered.
I loved that image—savoring that last infinitesimal smudge of butter. Thank you for taking us on that brief, bracing journey back in time. Reading it, I was reminded of another piece from that season of your writing that has stayed with me all these years: “Molting,” in River Teeth. I still see you there, splitting wood, and hear the words you recalled from the Gospel of Thomas—“Smite the rock and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and there am I.” Ever since, I’ve found it hard to split wood—or read you—without listening for what might be revealed in the grain.
Really thoughtful and eloquent. Thanks. Reminds me a bit of Frost who was glad to find any “display of mind” upon the page.
1963
"A Considerable Speck"
(Microscopic)
A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink
When something strange about it made me think,
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt –
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.
I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.
Thank you for showing how the larger picture can be ever so small. From the bottom up my heart rises.