Tuesday, July 11, 2006

A poem by Charles Simic

Words fail us. There are thoughts and feelings that are too rich and cavernous to be captured by the simple descriptors that we have invented and devised. Charles Simic said,"Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. We are always at the beginning, eternal apprentices." Here, Simic succeeds.


Little Night Music

Of neighbors' voices and dishes
Being cleared away
On long summer evenings
With the windows open
As we sat on the back stairs,
Smoking and sipping beer.

The memory of that moment,
So sweet at first,
The two of us chatting away,
Till the stars made us quiet.
We drew close
And held fast to each other
As if in sudden danger.
That one time, I didn't recognize
Your voice, or dare turn
To look at your face
As you spoke of us being born
With so little apparent cause.
I could think of nothing to say.
The music over, the night cold.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the smoking and sipping beer, but I don't think we are born with little apparent cause. That would turn the night cold for me also, but I would certainly think of something to say about our being born.

Anonymous said...

The key word may be 'apparent'. Maybe this poem is about faith and what is beyond that which is apparent. But there is something to say about both.

Anonymous said...

Leave it to you...the word "Guru" to pick up on that word 'apparent' to make me see the poem in a differnt way. Maybe I am only able to understand poems that rhyme.