It used to be a willfulness, an exertion, which verged
Immediately on fluency, that I will have to seem, as I did
Lately, out of light-blue air, in a dark-blue swimsuit.
Within the time that I’ve been long past, I by no means outgrew
The feeling of being, nor for a second forgot
Which international used to be mine. I clung to the merest whispers,
The faintest echoes that rose from under. For years,
I lay on a down-filled settee, on my own with my passions.
Vibrant refrains of never-ending azure rotated
The hours, and crammed me with excitement, however the poems
I wrote had been dulled through this sort of calm one feels
Within the downward flow of sleep. They by no means changed into
The relics of sunshine I needed them to be. Within the days
When it might be stated I used to be one in all you, I beloved
The past as any person handiest can who is certain
Through the earth. All that I wrote used to be a hymn to need,
To the semblances and phases of bliss. My poems
Bore just a passing likeness to the lifestyles
Of which they had been the miraculous section. But if
I used to be borne a number of the erasures of heaven I started
To imagine that no matter used to be far-off or puzzling may just by no means
Be made too obtrusive. After all I used to be fallacious.
I’d allowed myself to be swayed through a imaginative and prescient of plainness
That will have all issues develop into one concept.
Such a lot for the previous. Might the worst of it fall through the wayside
This night. Might different extra intricate powers convene.
Might the phrases that I discuss be those you pay attention.
—Mark Strand (1934-2014)
Learn Hannah Aizenman at the provenance of this lately rediscovered poem.
