Tuesday Poem | THE LAYERS by Stanley Kunitz

                                    THE LAYERS

                                    I have walked through many lives,

                                    some of them my own,

                                    and I am not who I was,

                                    though some principle of being

                                    abides, from which I struggle

                                    not to stray.

                                    When I look behind,

                                    as I am compelled to look

                                    before I can gather strength

                                    to proceed on my journey,

                                    I see the milestones dwindling

                                    toward the horizon

                                    and the slow fires trailing

                                    from the abandoned camp-sites,

                                    over which scavenger angels

                                    wheel on heavy wings.

                                    Oh, I have made myself a tribe

                                    out of my true affections,

                                    and my tribe is scattered!

                                    How shall the heart be reconciled

                                    to its feast of losses?

                                    In a rising wind

                                    the manic dust of my friends,

                                    those who fell along the way,

                                    bitterly stings my face,

                                    Yet I turn, I turn,

                                    exulting somewhat,

                                    with my will intact to go

                                    wherever I need to go,

                                    and every stone on the road

                                    precious to me.

                                    In my darkest night,

                                    when the moon was covered

                                    and I roamed through wreckage,

                                    a nimbus-clouded voice

                                    directed me:

                                    “Live in the layers,

                                    not on the litter.”

                                    Though I lack the art

                                    to decipher it,

                                    no doubt the next chapter

                                    in my book of transformations

                                    is already written.

                                    I am not done with my changes.

                                    Stanley Kunitz

litter |ˈlitər|noun1 trash, such as paper, cans, and bottles, that is left lying in an open or public place: fines for dropping litter

• [ in sing. ] an untidy collection of things lying about: a litter of sleeping bags on the floor.2 the group of young animals born to an animal at one time: a litter of five kittens.3 material forming a surface-covering layer, in particular:• (also cat litter )granular absorbent material lining a tray where a cat can urinate and defecate when indoors.• straw or other plant matter used as bedding for animals.• (also leaf litter )decomposing but recognizable leaves and other debris forming a layer on top of the soil, esp. in forests.4 historical a vehicle containing a bed or seat enclosed by curtains and carried on men's shoulders or by animals.• a stretcher, for transporting the sick and wounded.

Over on the Tuesday Poem hub, Mary McCallum (Curator of TP and this week's editor) features well known NZ poet, C. K. Stead with The Gift. 

Oh, for lines as fine as these --- 

' . . . The tuis

still quote you
and even cicadas
manage a phrase

that sounds like yours.
Storms too in wooden
houses sometimes

creak of you. . .'

In her dazzling background commentary, Mary writes ". . . Contrary to the impressive solidity of such achievements, The Gift skips into its subject with its thirteen-syllabled tercets - the delight and sense of mischief, palpable. And it takes them off, the two poets - both geniuses of a kind - to the place of 'touch-and-go tides', in a way that makes me think of the marvellous poem by Bill Manhire, Opoutere, an elegy to friend and fellow writer Michael King who died suddenly, leaving behind another place of tides and fish. These sorts of insights into the lives of prominent NZ writers and their work - our writing history, if you like - I find fascinating. But it's also a lyrical poem about two blokes who hung out in the way blokes in this country do. . . "