"Forecast" by Carolyn Coalson, water colour
on paper 2004
Route
Six
by
Stanley Kunitz
The city squats on my back
I am heart-sore, stiff necked,
exasperated. That's why
I slammed the door,
that's why I tell you now
in every house of marriage
there's room for an interpreter.
Let's jump into the car honey,
and head straight for the cape,
where the cock on our housetop crows
that the weather's fair,
and my garden waits for me
to coax into bloom.
As for those passions left
that flare past understanding,
like bundles of dead letters
out of our previous lives
that amaze us with their fevers,
we can stow them in the rear
along with the ziggurats of luggage
and Celia, our transcendental cat,
past-mistress of all languages,
including Hottentot and silence.
We'll drive non-stop till dawn,
and if I grow sleepy at the wheel,
you'll keep me awake by singing
in your bravura Chicago style
Ruth Etting's smoky song,
"Love me or Leave Me."
belting out the choices.
Light glazes the eastern sky
over Buzzards Bay.
Celia gyrates upward
like a performing seal,
her glistening nostrils aquiver
to sniff the brined-spiked air,
The last stretch toward home!
Twenty summers roll by.
*Stanley
Kunitz* (1905
- 2006), noted
American poet. Served as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congres and as United States Poet Laureate in 2000. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts,
and raised by his Lithuanian-Jewish mother and stepfather, who died
when Kunitz was 14. His father, Solomon Z. Kunitz, a dressmaker,
committed suicide six weeks before Kunitz was born.
Kunitz
graduated "summa cum laude" from Harvard College and earned
a master degree in English. He served in the US Army in the Second
World War. Kunitz's poetry has won praise from all circles as being
profound and well written. Many believe his poetry symbolism is
influenced significantly by the work of Carl Jung. He enjoyed
gardening and maintained one of the most impressive seaside gardens in
Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Source: Wikipedia
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