Wednesday, December 7, 2011

My Favorite Poem

Sometimes I repeat that last little stanza in my head when I need inspiration.  I wish I could accurately explain how much I love that stanza and this poem.


“Eleven” by Archibald MacLeish 

1            And summer mornings the mute child, rebellious,
            Stupid, hating the words, the meanings, hating
            The Think now, Think, the Oh but Think! would leave
            On tiptoe the three chairs on the verandah
5            And crossing tree by tree the empty lawn
            Push back the shed door and upon the sill
            Stand pressing out the sunlight from his eyes
            And enter and with outstretched fingers feel
            The grindstone and behind it the bare wall
10            And turn and in the corner on the cool
            Hard earth sit listening. And one by one,
            Out of the dazzled shadow in the room,
            The shapes would gather, the brown plowshares, spades,
            Mattocks, the polished helves of picks, a scythe
15            Hung from rafters, shovels, slender tines
            Glinting across the curve of sickle-shapes
            Older than men were, the wise tools, the iron
            Friendly with earth. And sit there, quiet, breathing
            The harsh dry smell of withered bulbs, the faint
20            Odor of dung, the silence. And outside
            Beyond the half-shut door the blind leaves
            And the corn moving. And at noon would come,
            Up from the garden, his hard crooked hands
            Gentle with earth, his knees still earth-stained, smelling
25            Of sun, of summer, the old gardener, like
            A priest, like an interpreter, and bend
            Over his baskets.
                                                And they would not speak:
            They would say nothing. And the child would sit there
30            Happy as though he had no name, as though
            He had been no one: a leaf, a stem,
            Like a root growing—

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