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A Poet Reflects

Posts tagged Rhina P. Espaillat:

July 20, 2012 with 29 notes
        tags: Parallax. Rhina P. Espaillat. Where Horizons Go.

Parrallax

I never write the words I meant to write.
Those come from where I’ve been, looking for me;
they are a door ajar, as if they might 
almost be true, and almost make me free.
But then the words that they set out to be
become those others that perhaps I meant
for naming what I wanted not to see,
as if some truth half giving its consent
turned, and the turning made it different
and led it elsewhere, somehow, by a hand
not the same hand that guided my intent.
I mean to write those words I understand
before they speak themselves, but then they close.
And what they would have said, god only knows.

—Rhina P. Espaillat, from Where Horizons Go (New Odyssey Press, 1998)

June 24, 2012 with 23 notes
        tags: Invocation. Rhina P. Espaillat. poetry. Where Horizons Go.

Image, music, memory, mind’s reflection:
let these now, as then, in the freight of each day
seem enough to treasure without betraying
moment to meaning.

—Rhina P. Espaillat, from “Invocation” in Where Horizons Go (New Odyssey Press, 1998)

April 15, 2012 with 19 notes
        tags: Falling. Where Horizons Go. poetry. Rhina P. Espaillat.

And in the heart, born single as a kiss,
Broods the sad other—learner, yearner, dier—
That knows, uncomforted, its one desire
Was not for this.

—Rhina P. Espaillat, closing stanza to “Falling” in Where Horizons Go (New Odyssey Press, 1998), winner of the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize.

March 31, 2012 with 20 notes
        tags: In Stone. poetry. Rehearsing Absence. Rhina P. Espaillat.
In Stone Learn, as you read me, stranger,            How danger Surrounds every delight,            How night From which none can wake you            Will take you And memory forsake you, As you, just now, are turning From old inscriptions, learning How danger, how night, will take you. —Rhina P. Espaillat, from Rehearsing Absence (The University of Evansville Press, 2001), Recipient of the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award

In Stone

Learn, as you read me, stranger,
            How danger
Surrounds every delight,
            How night
From which none can wake you
            Will take you
And memory forsake you,
As you, just now, are turning
From old inscriptions, learning
How danger, how night, will take you.

—Rhina P. Espaillat, from Rehearsing Absence (The University of Evansville Press, 2001), Recipient of the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award

February 22, 2012 with 34 notes
        tags: poetry. Rehearsing Absence. Rhina P. Espaillat. Workshop.
I’ve been setting the table for the dead, rehearsing the absence of the living, seasoning age with names for the unborn. I’ve been putting a life together, like supper, like a poem. with what I have. —Rhina P. Espaillat, excerpt from “Workshop” in Rehearsing Absence (The University of Evansville Press, 2001

I’ve been setting the table for the dead,
rehearsing the absence of the living,
seasoning age with names for the unborn.
I’ve been putting a life together, like
supper, like a poem. with what I have.

—Rhina P. Espaillat, excerpt from “Workshop” in Rehearsing Absence (The University of Evansville Press, 2001

April 12, 2011 with 17 notes
        tags: Rhina P. Espaillat. poetry. Voyeur. Where Horizons Go.
Voyeur A man is at the window in a room you have no need to visit.  Shoulder, face, black undershirt; beside him, in the gloom, a tiny leaping light you barely trace back to a screen, unwatched.  He watches you instead.  And you stare back, brazen behind your flimsy namelessness.  What would you do, you think, if he stepped through this parted blind, yanked you out of the safety of your skin into his cage of hours, his alien wild memory like tattoos?  Or what if, in some flowering complicity, you smiled across the falling night?  He looks about; you shut the blinds to keep the darkness out. —Phina P. Espaillat, from Where Horizons Go: Poems, (New Odyssey Press, 1998). Winner of the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize.

Voyeur

A man is at the window in a room
you have no need to visit.  Shoulder, face,
black undershirt; beside him, in the gloom,
a tiny leaping light you barely trace
back to a screen, unwatched.  He watches you
instead.  And you stare back, brazen behind
your flimsy namelessness.  What would you do,
you think, if he stepped through this parted blind,
yanked you out of the safety of your skin
into his cage of hours, his alien wild
memory like tattoos?  Or what if, in
some flowering complicity, you smiled
across the falling night?  He looks about;
you shut the blinds to keep the darkness out.

—Phina P. Espaillat, from Where Horizons Go: Poems, (New Odyssey Press, 1998).

Winner of the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize.

March 29, 2011 with 25 notes
        tags: Birds at the Feedeer. poetry. Rehearsing Absence. Rhina P. Espaillat.
Birds at the Feeder Because life never eats out of your hand like a tame bird that holds you in its eyes, because it will not sing at your command, because it will draw blood, sometimes, surprise you with a steely beak turned wild and thrust deep in the palm brimming with hope like seed until you come to fear it—fear you must chase it away—you dote on these that need your gift of grain so humbly they come round morning and afternoon, punctual as prayers. It’s you who feed on them, their trust, the sound their feathers make, the sweeping up of cares so small you take up yours, content to live on what each day and night sees fit to give. —Rhina P. Espaillat, from Rehearsing Absence (The University of Evansville Press, 2001), recipient of the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award

Birds at the Feeder

Because life never eats out of your hand
like a tame bird that holds you in its eyes,
because it will not sing at your command,
because it will draw blood, sometimes, surprise
you with a steely beak turned wild and thrust
deep in the palm brimming with hope like seed
until you come to fear it—fear you must
chase it away—you dote on these that need
your gift of grain so humbly they come round
morning and afternoon, punctual as prayers.
It’s you who feed on them, their trust, the sound
their feathers make, the sweeping up of cares
so small you take up yours, content to live
on what each day and night sees fit to give.

—Rhina P. Espaillat, from Rehearsing Absence (The University of Evansville Press, 2001), recipient of the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award

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