tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138115961972902942.post7891500641470285657..comments2024-03-27T21:31:56.674-04:00Comments on The Quotidian Kit: Not UnworthyKitti Carrikerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02673202543914324582noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138115961972902942.post-77155394409989811622012-03-20T09:20:15.121-04:002012-03-20T09:20:15.121-04:00Jenny W. H. writes: "This poem reminds me of ...Jenny W. H. writes: "This poem reminds me of Stanley Kunitz "The Layers". No ref to shoelaces but, still..."<br /><br />http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/242450<br /><br />The Layers<br />By Stanley Kunitz<br /><br />I have walked through many lives,<br />some of them my own,<br />and I am not who I was,<br />though some principle of being<br />abides, from which I struggle<br />not to stray.<br />When I look behind,<br />as I am compelled to look<br />before I can gather strength<br />to proceed on my journey,<br />I see the milestones dwindling<br />toward the horizon<br />and the slow fires trailing<br />from the abandoned camp-sites,<br />over which scavenger angels<br />wheel on heavy wings.<br />Oh, I have made myself a tribe<br />out of my true affections,<br />and my tribe is scattered!<br />How shall the heart be reconciled<br />to its feast of losses?<br />In a rising wind<br />the manic dust of my friends,<br />those who fell along the way,<br />bitterly stings my face,<br />Yet I turn, I turn,<br />exulting somewhat,<br />with my will intact to go<br />wherever I need to go,<br />and every stone on the road<br />precious to me.<br />In my darkest night,<br />when the moon was covered<br />and I roamed through wreckage,<br />a nimbus-clouded voice<br />directed me:<br />“Live in the layers,<br />not on the litter.”<br />Though I lack the art<br />to decipher it,<br />no doubt the next chapter<br />in my book of transformations<br />is already written.<br />I am not done with my changes.<br /><br />Stanley Kunitz, "The Layers" from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz. Copyright © 1978 by Stanley Kunitz. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.Kitti Carrikerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02673202543914324582noreply@blogger.com