THE BISHOP'S SOLE MATTER
A jury's idea of waiting for something to convince
never made any sense to me. It's either
clear from the start or it's not.
All the rest is idle gossip.
Consider the lilies of the field -
they neither toil nor sleep.
They take out no one's trash and neither
do they rob nor pillage.
A washbasin filled with water would know that.
Early each morning, the guy at the piano
delivers my newspaper. He sneaks up on the
walkway, throws it down, and runs back to his
eighty-eight keys.
Why?, you would wonder, no?
-
I always wanted to read Elizabeth Bishop aloud.
The way James Merrill once did : with dramatic
flair - in 'Arrival at Santos' there's a part
where the deck-boy catches the old woman's skirt
with the boat hook, by accident.
'Please boy, do be more careful with that
boat hook! Watch out! Oh! It has caught
Miss Breen's skirt!'
-
It's really nothing but a bunch of stupid words.
('Life and the memory of it cramped, dim,
on a piece of Bristol board.')
never made any sense to me. It's either
clear from the start or it's not.
All the rest is idle gossip.
Consider the lilies of the field -
they neither toil nor sleep.
They take out no one's trash and neither
do they rob nor pillage.
A washbasin filled with water would know that.
Early each morning, the guy at the piano
delivers my newspaper. He sneaks up on the
walkway, throws it down, and runs back to his
eighty-eight keys.
Why?, you would wonder, no?
-
I always wanted to read Elizabeth Bishop aloud.
The way James Merrill once did : with dramatic
flair - in 'Arrival at Santos' there's a part
where the deck-boy catches the old woman's skirt
with the boat hook, by accident.
'Please boy, do be more careful with that
boat hook! Watch out! Oh! It has caught
Miss Breen's skirt!'
-
It's really nothing but a bunch of stupid words.
('Life and the memory of it cramped, dim,
on a piece of Bristol board.')
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