Monday, January 30, 2012

January Rose





Less Being More


It started when he was a young man
and went to Italy. He climbed mountains,
wanting to be a poet. But he was troubled
by what Dorothy Wordsworth wrote in
her journal about William having worn
himself out searching all day to find
a simile for a nightingale. It seemed
a long way from the tug of passion.
He ended up staying in pensione
where the old women would take up
the children in the middle of the night
to rent the room, carrying them warm
and clinging to the mothers, the babies
making a mewing sound. He began hunting
for the second rate. The insignificant
ruins, the negligible museums, the back-
country villages with only one pizzeria
and two small bars. The unimproved.


Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven

8 comments:

  1. (s)"He began hunting
    for the second rate. The insignificant
    ruins, the negligible museums, the back-
    country villages with only one pizzeria
    and two small bars. The unimproved."

    Love that part. That is just the way I like to travel.

    Thanks for the poetry and the winter rose. x0 N2

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  2. N2, that too was my favourite part, especially the last line, "the unimproved".

    Many thanks for such a lovely poem and that beautiful photo.

    As for Thatcher and reagan, I dig you, I really do. :-) I haven't seen The Iron Lady either, and given the cost of a cinema ticket, I doubt I will.

    Greetings from London.

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  3. It's always great to discover something undiscovered or unsung while traveling.

    I think "Less is More" is one of the great lessons of our time -- in travel and in all else!

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  4. You do know how very much I love you .
    Thank you yet again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. the unimproved cannot be improved upon can it?
    perfection is overrated as usual

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gilbert is, although deeply flawed, my most deeply beloved of poets.

    Of course he inhabits a corner of your heart. It makes sense. He's so utterly a sensualist, but with that iron in him and that bone-deep knowledge of loss and more loss.

    Anyway, always glad to encounter him, I sometimes think I'm the only one who's smitten by him.


    yrs-

    Scott

    ReplyDelete

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