Budbill's poem

I first read David Budbill's poetry in 1999 when I was camping in New Hampshire. The spare, quiet lines; the beauty of everyday objects, domestic scenes, and the New England countryside. Those were days of spartan living for me and his poetry was a fine companion.

Coming across a poem by him in nearly eight years made me wistful. In the summer of 1999, I was hiking, reading, writing, sitting by a beautiful lake, walking in a woody darkness every evening; I knew which leaves worked best as toilet paper; I learned how to make guacamole; I learned how to remove and kill ticks; I wrote letters every other day because there were no computers or phones; I received letters nearly every other day because I was loved; I got care packages (pillows, paintboxes, brushes, drawing paper); I had flowers in the mail two days after I made my ascent and descent from Mount Washington. Back in the day, I felt I could do anything. I miss that feeling.

But it could return one day. I'm still here.

From The Writer's Alamanc -
"WINTER: TONIGHT: SUNSET" by David Budbill

Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first

through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.

Posted by Monoceros at January 4, 2007 5:53 PM