On Winter Driveway Poem by Glen Kappy
On Winter Driveway
from "While Passing Through"/Winter
On winter driveway—
so much like a grasshopper
frozen in place
but just a wood chip—
bit of happiness.
This poem poem does a lot of leaping for just 5 lines. The driveway is a frozen grasshopper, then a wood chop, finally a happy thing. That is quite a metaphorical journey for something which doesn't move but launches all subsequent movement, namely, a driveway.
Reading your comment, Daniel, I can see what you mean. The constraints of the tanka form make the syntax odd. I thought I saw a frozen grasshopper in my winter driveway, but it was just a wood chip. And, being who I am, there was a small burst of happiness inside me to know it was just a wood chip. -Glen
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/4/2024 10:31:33 PM # 1.0.0.1119
Your notes to Daniel makes the poem perfectly clear! The delight you experienced on realizing that after all it was not a frozen grass hopper, but a wood chip shows your concern for even the tiny living forms of Nature!
Hi, Valsa! Don’t think I’m a Jain yet, but through a process I’ve been moving in that direction. (If you’d want, you can see it in St. Francis and the Fly, written years ago and first among these, and Choices, Nature and Man, and Ants in My Kitchen where you see me struggle about killing uninvited insect guests.) Only God can create, can breathe life, and not in this nor judgment nor any other way should we presume to take God’s place. Good to see your name, your comment—thank you! -Glen