Gift poem – Alice Notley

Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel

the stress on your back shapes your insight

this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find

you by your marks, he says

an imprint

But when I summon you, I talk to—I say—

my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy

to others. They’re not very interesting he says.

When I first came to this country, and now

I know the language I say, but I had in a dream

spoken it many years previously. That is,

not the language of the dead the language

of France. I took one year of French in 1964

and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French

in a dream all night: I was in the future I

moved here in 1992. Country of the more

logical than I? though the people of my quartier

know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange

You do everything alone a woman said to me.

There are ways to care without interfering

but the French speak of anguish frequently

they are conscious of emotional extremity

a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . .

some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure

he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday

today though it’s the day of the dead hello

we love you they say.

Copyright ©: 
Alice Notley

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Poems in English 

• A Paralell Between Bowling And Preferment by William Strode by William Strode
• A New Year’s Gift by William Strode by William Strode
• A Necklace by William Strode by William Strode
• A Lover To His Mistress by William Strode by William Strode
• A Girdle by William Strode by William Strode
• Yesterday by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Wish by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Whenever I Go There by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• When You Go Away by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Vehicles by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Unknown Bird by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Speed Of Light by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Source by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The River Of Bees by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Burnt Child by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Term by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Some Last Questions by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• One of the Lives by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• On the Subject of Poetry by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin

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