Poetry Friday: The great things

My brain is worried and tired.
I pick up the encyclopedia,
The volume GIC to HAR,
It seems I have read everything in it,
So many other nights like this.
I sit staring empty-headed at the article Grosbeak,
Listening to the long rattle and pound
Of freight cars and switch engines in the distance.
Suddenly I remember
Coming home from swimming
In Ten Mile Creek,
Over the long moraine in the early summer evening,
My hair wet, smelling of waterweeds and mud.
I remember a sycamore in front of a ruined farmhouse,
And instantly and clearly the revelation
Of a song of incredible purity and joy,
My first rose-breasted grosbeak,
Facing the low sun, his body
Suffused with light.
I was motionless and cold in the hot evening
Until he flew away, and I went on knowing
In my twelfth year one of the great things
Of my life had happened.

From Kenneth Rexroth’s “GIC to HAR.” Read the rest here.

We don’t choose what we remember. Often we don’t know the great events till after they happen, but once in awhile we know in the moment that something permanently grand is occurring. In this case the memory is a good one, returning as a brilliant reminder of the existence of beauty and joy in the world at a time when the speaker needs it very much.

Rose-breasted grosbeaks are frequent visitors at our feeder. We have several pairs in the vicinity, and though the male is usually the attention-grabber with his handsome coloration, I think the female is pretty too with her brown markings and flashes of yellow when she flies. Apparently it’s common that while the female is sitting on the nest, the male will sing quietly nearby. Handsome is as handsome does.

Poetry Friday is at The Writer’s Armchair today.