Ricky invites me to check out his speedo ... oh. Wait. Never mind. Okay, I'm a bit disappointed, but I'll still play along. My second round already, actually. I gave it a first pass from the privacy of my cubicle, but that was far too geeky, and now, sitting on my bed with my laptop on my lap where it belongs, this is what I do:
Grab the closest book to you. Resist the urge to get hold of one of the cooler, intellectual ones! You've gotta be honest. Turn to page 123. Go down five sentences, and then post the next three sentences in your blog. Simple.
The book closest to me is in the nightstand, "The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz". Kunitz, whom I owe to Loren, for which I will always be grateful. Page 123 doesn't have five sentences. How about lines? Let me quote lines 6-8:
That the pretender kills,
Receive your stumbling child
Drunk with the morning-dew
Doesn't really make sense, does it? Here is the whole poem, part 3 of "The Way Down".
Time swings her burning hands.
The blossom is the fruit,
And where I walk, the leaves
Lie level with the root.
My brave god went from me.
I saw him going down
Incorrigibly wild
In a cloud of golden air.
O father in the wood,
Mad father of us all,
King of our antlered wills,
Our candelabrum-pride
That the pretender kills,
Receive your stumbling child
Drunk with the morning-dew
Into your fibrous love
With which creation's strung;
Embrace him, raise him high,
Keeping the old time young,
And hold him through the night
Our best hopes share, as bright,
As peerless as a cock's eye.
I was just thinking about my own pride, in the Accordeon on the way home, listening to Richard Thompson for the seventieth time this week. "Candelabrum-pride", that fits.
I haven't read Kunitz for awhile, but he is certainly one of my favorite poets, one I need to get back to,
Posted by: Loren Webster | May 21, 2005 at 08:43 PM
I'm glad you introduced me to him. I'd never heard of him until I read some of his poetry on your site. Isn't that a shame?
Posted by: Elkit | May 21, 2005 at 11:16 PM