Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems

The poem
if it reflects the sea
reflects only
its dance
upon that profound depth
where
it seems to triumph.

Reading these poems this frozen afternoon, I sensed almost a dislocation and then swift reconstruction of my faculties. WCW was offering me thinking lessons. My congery of indifference may be sliding towards despair but I harbor a measured hope. The early miniatures required a few readings. I discovered some kinship reading about the farmers with their scythes and reflecting that the wheat-shearing scene in Anna Karenina was Proust's favorite. The later poems depict an aging poet finding joy at the limits of his craft. There’s perhaps a shared warmth in muted loneliness.