Kay Ryan Poems

Nothing exists as a block
and cannot be parceled up.
So if nothing's ventured
it's not just talk;
...

To the dragon
any loss is total.
...

It is at the edges
that time
thins.
...

As though
the river were
...

Patience is wider
than one once envisioned,
...

The chickens are circling
and blotting out the day.
...

Say when rain
cannot make
you more wet
...

Everything contains some silence.
Noise gets its zest from the small
...

We are always
really carrying
a ladder, but it's
invisible. We
only know
something's
the matter:
something precious
crashes; easy doors
prove impassable.
Or, in the body,
there's too much
swing or off-
center gravity.
And, in the mind,
a drunken capacity,
access to out-of-range
apples. As though
one had a way to climb
out of the damage
and apology.
...

It seems like you could, but
you can't go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It's all too deep for that.
You've overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you're given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope,
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.
...