Patrick Dumas

This is one of my favorite poems by Randall Jarrell and one of my favorite poems. Analyze it line for line and read it many times over to understand each lines meaning..

From my mother's sleep I fell into the state
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze
...

Ice cycles hung from my nose
hands were stuck to my gun; froze.
All alone in a storm of white
couldn't tell day from night.
...

Autumn comes back around
and all the leaves fall to the ground.
The air turns cold but the sky’s still blue.
Will you fall to me as I fall to you?
...

The Burning Sun came rising-
it rose into the sky.
I sat and smoked the herbs
as the birds began to fly.
...

Free River flow, Free River
so cold, Free River
you’re getting old.
...

Though it is high noon,
the moon hangs in the sky
opposite the sun.
He sits on the periphery
...

“We need to talk, ” she said on the phone.
The sun was going down,
trees a silhouette
giving way to darkening sky.
...

I awoke in a dream with pure consciousness,
and took a walk down to the stream of loneliness.
There was a woman there
with scarlet fire hair,
...

This food in my mouth, it's making it dry.
I looked at the ground, and fell through the sky.
All of these days, are passing me by-
The crowds in the street, are playing their part
...

I looked in her eyes, and breathed in her feel
We've come here again, 'cause time is a wheel

The snow on the ground is warming my heart
...

Virgin flowers –
butterfly drinks
first taste of new life.
...

Suspended on a beam of moon-light,
a silhouette against the window pane
when the man in the sky watches over us.
Awoken when the first
...

Loneliness lingers in the cemetery
naked as the tomb stones.
When she left she didn’t even say good bye.
...

A gypsy peers through her crystal ball.
As I watch the seasons change through my wall.
The wizard pondering wisdom gazes as the fire blazes; burning hot.
A sorcerer reveals what shall be; and what shall not.
...

Goodnight,
let dreams latch on to your dream catcher
and vision new worlds and places
where unfamiliar faces are not astray.
...

Well, son, I'll tell you;
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
...

Holding a train rail is like loving you-
I hold you so tight, you shake me through.
I know the train’s comin’, but know not when
I’ll hold on to the rail until then.
...

May God guide every bullet
to my enemy's death.
May my trigger finger stay strong
'till there is not a slug left.
...

In Spring of youth it was my lot-
to haunt of the wide world a spot
the which I could not love the less -
so lovely was the loneliness.
...