Derek Walcott & Robert Lowell

A quick Friday lunchtime post - ran across two poems today in separate sources that came together nicely. The first is Robert Lowell's The Public Garden, a meticulous poem, with finely detailed descriptions. Right smack in the middle, the following leapt out:


"And now the moon, earth's friend, that cared so much
For us, and cared so little, comes again -
Always a stranger!"



Now I generally hate personification in a poem, anthropromophizing in a Disneyesque way, so as I hit the end of the first line (fyi - it's in the middle of the poem), I was unimpressed to the point of putting the book aside and, then, boom, line two somehow straightens it all out and here is a little Eastern-like gem of wisdom that makes me thing of Basho.

How's that for a turnaround?

Here's an audio clip of Lowell reading The Public Garden and here's the text of the poem.

And then, via a blog feed, I ran into Derek Walcott's In Italy, published in the recent New Yorker, that, if anything, is even more precise than Lowell's fine delineation of autumn in a city park. Although there is no Eastern feel, the imagery and beauty share a kinship with Lowell's fine poem. Also, I was reminded of James Wright's beautiful poems of his experience of Italy.

Just one of those synchronistic seques of the mind (in time) that was too good not to share.

best,
Don