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Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
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Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
James Arlington Wright
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Friday, January 03, 2003 |
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Read poems about / on: butterfly, house, green, home, life, horse
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Comments about this poem (Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
by
James Arlington Wright
) |
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Chris Calloo (8/16/2009 12:38:00 PM)
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Lazy Reader:
Admit it. You read too quickly. You were lazy. Weak.
How pleasing to think of last year's horses, a bronze butterfly, cowbells in the ravine,
How startling, the poem's last line.
'I have wasted my life.' Is that poetry? Sounds like prose, rhetoric, a declarative sentence. Sounds like telling, not showing.
Try the poem again. But this time, don't read. Lie in the hammock.
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A E Webster (9/16/2005 7:52:00 AM)
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Wonderful, I first heard this on radio bbc 7, an arresting and peaceful poem, read in a voice beautifully in tune with its meaning. In the final line, sudden even abrupt as a self judgement can be when measuring against a perfection in nature, he (as we) are confronted with the tragedy of our existence; an animal which knows it is dying can never match such a perfection. Contrast this with similiar work by Edwin Muir also.
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