Monday, October 26, 2015

JACK GILBERT ~




 J  A  C  K      G  I  L  B  E  R  T



 Alone



I never thought Michiko would come back

after she died. But if she did, I knew

it would be as a lady in a long white dress.

It is strange that she has returned

as somebody's dalmatian. I meet

the man walking her on a leash

almost every week. He says good morning

and I stoop down to calm her. He said

once that she was never like that with

other people. Sometimes she is tethered

on their lawn when I go by. If nobody

is around, I sit on the grass. When she

finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap

and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper

in her soft ears. She cares nothing about

our mystery. She likes it best when

I touch her head and tell her small

things about my days and our friends.

That makes her happy the way it always did.


 _________________________



J  A  C  K      G  I  L  B  E  R  T


Collected Poems
Knopf




I started to type out a poem by Jack Gilbert today — in fact, two poems,
and I was going to tell you how the first poem, no need to say which poem,
after typing five lines and more to go, vanished before my eyes. I touched no buttons
but anyone who knows computer mechanics knows full well a button or something had to
have been touched for the poem to vanish. No, the poem simply vanished, probably because
someone wanted this to be so. I let it be so. I started on a second poem and the same disappearance occurred. I then made my way through a third poem, the one here for us.