earing with charles simic

Happy to report that things are moving along with the, uhm, move to McMinnville. We’re situated in a new home and are piecing together who we are from what we have been — which is to say that all our stuff is here, but not fully organized.

[image error]As time has been slipping past me during this move, I thought it only suiting to share this week’s poem by Charles Simic. I continue to admire Simic’s knack for images that read with a riddle-like thrill. The subtlety with which one image suggests the next, until we’re left at the “lip” of the poem’s ending is the work of imaginative intuition. Both poet and reader listen with the same “ear” throughout.

Watch Repair – Charles Simic

A small wheel

Incandescent,

Shivering like

A pinned butterfly.

Hands thrown up

In all directions:

The crossroads

One arrives at

In a nightmare.

Higher than that

Number 12 presides

Like a beekeeper

Over the swarming honeycomb

Of the open watch.

Other wheels

That could fit

Inside a raindrop.

Tools

That must be splinters

Of arctic starlight.

Tiny golden mills

Grinding invisible

Coffee beans.

When the coffee’s boiling

Cautiously,

So it doesn’t burn us,

We raise it

To the lips

Of the nearest

Ear.

*

[image error]A quick note of thanks for those of you who have helped welcome my new book, Small Fires, into the world. Copies can still be found via FutureCycle Press and Amazon. I’m really proud of this collection!

Happy earing!

José