Just to add, from a similar place in life, that the woman probably thought
herself more or at least different from his pleasure in watching her, and
that the beloved sleeping is any child sleeping. Understand, Ken, that it's
me I'm chastising here.
Mark
At 01:51 PM 3/14/2005, you wrote:
>After reading Silliman's notes on Gilbert, I followed the clickie and
>got to where I got. My confession--I do not know much about this man's
>work. Or didn't. This is off the poets.org website. All I could do
>when I read it, when I came to the end, was gasp. One of the few poems
>that explained me to me.
>
>Failing and Flying
>Jack Gilbert
>
>Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
>It's the same when love comes to an end,
>or the marriage fails and people say
>they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
>said it would never work. That she was
>old enough to know better. But anything
>worth doing is worth doing badly.
>Like being there by that summer ocean
>on the other side of the island while
>love was fading out of her, the stars
>burning so extravagantly those nights that
>anyone could tell you they would never last.
>Every morning she was asleep in my bed
>like a visitation, the gentleness in her
>like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
>Each afternoon I watched her coming back
>through the hot stony field after swimming,
>the sea light behind her and the huge sky
>on the other side of that. Listened to her
>while we ate lunch. How can they say
>the marriage failed? Like the people who
>came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
>and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
>I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
>but just coming to the end of his triumph.
>
>Ken
>
>--
>Kenneth Wolman
>Proposal Development Department
>Room SW334
>Sarnoff Corporation
>609-734-2538
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