James Wright: "Depressed by a Book of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward an Unused Pasture and Invite the Insects to Join Me"

Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone.
I climb a slight rise of grass.
I do not want to disturb the ants
Who are walking single file up the fence post,
Carrying small white petals,
Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.
I close my eyes for a moment and listen.
The old grasshoppers
Are tired, they leap heavily now,
Their thighs are burdened.
I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.
Then lovely, far off, a dark cricket begins
In the maple trees.



"Depressed by a Book of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward an Unused Pasture and Invite the Insects to Join Me," by James Wright, from Above the River: The Complete Poems, edited by Donald Hall. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992.

Photography credit: Andiyan Lutfi (originally color).


 

James Wright: "Today I Was So Happy, So I Made This Poem"

As the plump squirrel scampers
Across the roof of the corncrib,
The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness,
And I see that it is impossible to die.
Each moment of time is a mountain.
An eagle rejoices in the oak trees of heaven,
Crying
This is what I wanted.

"Today I Was So Happy, So I Made This Poem" by James Wright, from The Branch Will Not Break. © Wesleyan University Press, 1963.

Photograph: "Moonrise Over a Barn," by Mike Coll, 2003 (originally black and white).