Ted Kooser: "A Blind Woman"

She had turned her face up into

a rain of light, and came on smiling.

The light trickled down her forehead   

and into her eyes. It ran down

into the neck of her sweatshirt

and wet the white tops of her breasts.

Her brown shoes splashed on

into the light. The moment was like

a circus wagon rolling before her

through puddles of light, a cage on wheels,

and she walked fast behind it,   

exuberant, curious, pushing her cane

through the bars, poking and prodding,   

while the world cowered back in a corner.

"A Blind Woman" by Ted Kooser, from Weather Central (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).

Art credit: "Light in the Dark," photograph by BlackStripeTH17.


 

Ted Kooser: "In January"

Only one cell in the frozen hive of night
is lit, or so it seems to us:
this Vietnamese café, with its oily light,
its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers.
Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks.
Beyond the glass, the wintry city
creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.
A great wind rushes under all of us.
The bigger the window, the more it trembles.




"In January" by Ted Kooser. Text as published in Delights & Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).  

Art credit: Photograph of an orange lamp in a Vietnamese restaurant in Hanoi, by wpjrnl.com.

 

Ted Kooser: "Porch Swing in September"

The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it's time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.



"Porch Swing in September" by Ted Kooser, from Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.

Art credit: "Painting No. 36: Porch Swing," oil on gessoboard, by Jessica Green (originally color).

Ted Kooser: "On the Road"

By the toe of my boot,
a pebble of quartz,
one drop of the earth’s milk,
dirty and cold.
I held it to the light
and could almost see through it
into the grand explanation.
Put it back, something told me,
put it back and keep walking. 

"On the Road" by Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows. © Copper Canyon Press, 2004.  

Photography credit: "Rutilated Quartz," by unknown photographer, found at this link (originally color).

 

Ted Kooser: "Mother"

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

"Mother" by Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows. © Copper Canyon Press, 2004.

Image credit: Unknown (originally color).


 

Ted Kooser: "At the Cancer Clinic"

She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

"At the Cancer Clinic" by Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows. © Copper Canyon Press, 2004.

Image credit: "Three Sisters," by Rajeev Kumar, acrylic on canvas, 1986 (originally color).