American poet (1928–1974)
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"CONSORTING WITH ANGELS
I was tired of being a woman,
tired of the spoons and the pots,
tired of my mouth and my breasts,
tired of the cosmetics and the silks.
There were still men who sat at my table,
circled around the bowl I offered up.
The bowl was filled with purple grapes
and the flies hovered in for the scent
and even my father came with his white bone.
But I was tired of the gender of things.
Last night I had a dream
and I said to it . . .
"You are the answer.
You will outlive my husband and my father."
In that dream there was a city made of chains
where Joan was put to death in man's clothes
and the nature of the angels went unexplained,
no two made in the same species,
one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand,
one chewing a star and recording its orbit,
each one like a poem obeying itself,
performing God's functions,
a people apart.
"You are the answer,"
I said, and entered,
lying down on the gates of the city.
Then the chains were fastened around me
and I lost my common gender and my final aspect.
Adam was on the left of me
and Eve was on the right of me,
both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason.
We wove our arms together
and rode under the sun.
I was not a woman anymore,
not one thing or the other.
0 daughters of Jerusalem,
the king has brought me into his chamber.
I am black and I am beautiful.
I've been opened and undressed.
I have no arms or legs.
I'm all one skin like a fish.
I'm no more a woman
than Christ was a man."
"Welcome Morning"
There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.
The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.
The summer has seized you,
as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw
lemons as large as your desk-side globe-
that miniature map of the world-
and I could mention, too,
the market stalls of mushrooms
and garlic bugs all engorged.
Or I even think of the orchard next door,
where the berries are done
and the apples are beginning to swell.
And once, with our first backyard,
I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans
we couldn’t eat.
"Keeping The City
"Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman guardeth in vain" - John F. Kennedy's unspoken words in Dallas on November 23, 1963.
Once,
in August,
head on your chest,
I heard wings
battering up the place,
something inside trying to fly out
and I was silent
and attentive,
the watchman.
I was your small public,
your small audience
but it was you that was clapping,
it was you untying the snarls and knots,
the webs, all bloody and gluey;
you with your twelve tongues and twelve wings
beating, wresting, beating, beating
your way out of childhood,
that airless net that fastened you down.
Since then I was more silent
though you had gone miles away,
tearing down, rebuilding the fortress.
I was there
but could do nothing
but guard the city
lest it break.
I was silent.
I had a strange idea I could overhear
but that your voice, tongue, wing
belonged solely to you.
The Lord was silent too.
I did not know if he could keep you whole,
where I, miles away, yet head on your chest,
could do nothing. Not a single thing.
The wings of the watchman,
if I spoke, would hurt the bird of your soul
as he nested, bit, sucked, flapped.
I wanted him to fly, burst like a missile from your throat,
burst from the spidery-mother-web,
burst from Woman herself
where too many had laid out lights
that stuck to you and left a burn
that smarted into your middle age.
The city
of my choice
that I guard
like a butterfly, useless, useless
in her yellow costume, swirling
swirling around the gates.
The city shifts, falls, rebuilds,
and I can do nothing.
A watchman
should be on the alert,
but never cocksure.
And The Lord -
who knows what he keepeth?"
Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help -
this life after death?