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"If I can think of it, it isn't what I want.
I want . . . I want a ship from some near star
To land in the yard,"
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. A Sick Child (l. 13-15). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"And yet somewhere there must be
Something that's different from everything.
All that I've never thought of—think of me!"
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. A Sick Child (l. 18-20). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"Bunched upside down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping child."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Bats (l. 30-34). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
And catches him. He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Bats (l. 1-5). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"They have thrown away her electric toothbrush, someone else slips
The key into the lock of her safety-deposit box
At the Crocker-Anglo Bank; her seat at the cricket matches
Is warmed by buttocks less delectable than hers."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), British poet, critic. In Montecito (l. 12-15). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"It was not dying: everybody died."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Losses (l. 1). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"We died like aunts of pets or foreigners."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Losses (l. 10). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"They said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.
It was not dying—no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?""
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Losses (l. 28-32). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school—
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Losses (l. 22-25). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"Now that I'm old, my wish
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my car
See me."
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), U.S. poet, critic. Next Day (l. 16-19). . .
The Complete Poems [Randall Jarrell]. (1969; repr. 1989) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
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