Jane Hirshfield
"What some
could not have escaped
Others will find by decision
Each will call it fate"
Jane Hirshfield
I Ran out Naked in the Sun
Jane Hirshfield
I ran out naked
in the sun
and who could blame me
who could blame
the day was warm
I ran out naked
in the rain
and who could blame me
who could blame
the storm
I leaned toward sixty
that day almost done
it thundered
then
I wanted more I
shouted More
and who could blame me
who could blame
had been before
could blame me
that I wanted more
Poem with Two Endings
Jane Hirshfield
Say "death" and the whole room freezes-
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.
Say the word continuously,
and things begin to move forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.
Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.
Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.
The grip of life is a strong as the grip of death
(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)
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