Rethink.

Album (from Poetry) Kay Ryan Death has a life of its own. See how its album has grown in a year and how the sharp blot of it has softened till those could almost be shadows behind the cherry blossoms in this shot. In fact you couldn’t prove they’re not. Comment: How does death have …

“Emptiness” (from The Atlantic) Kay Ryan Emptiness cannot be compressed. Nor can it fight abuse. Nor is there an endless West hosting elk, antelope, and the tough cayuse. This is true also of the mind: it can get used. Comment: The cayuse is exceptionally tough; Wikipedia described them as “feral” horses. The cayuse sounds like …

New Rooms (from Poetry) Kay Ryan The mind must set itself up wherever it goes and it would be most convenient to impose its old rooms — just tack them up like an interior tent. Oh but the new holes aren’t where the windows went. Comment: “Impose” for me triggers another metaphor, that of mind …

Many thanks to Grace Pham Masterworks of Ming (from The Writer’s Almanac) Kay Ryan Ming, Ming such a lovely thing blue and white bowls and basins glow in museum light they would be lovely filled with rice or water so nice adjunct to dinner or washing a daughter a small daughter of course since it’s …

Pinhole (from Poetry Magazine) Kay Ryan We say pinhole. A pin hole of light. We can’t imagine how bright more of it could be, the way this much defeats night. It almost isn’t fair, whoever poked this, with such a small act to vanquish blackness. Comment: “We say pinhole:” we (all of us? humanity? A …

Cloud (from Poetry Feb. 2010) Kay Ryan A blue stain creeps across the deep pile of the evergreens. From inside the forest it seems like an interior matter, something wholly to do with trees, a color passed from one to another, a requirement to which they submit unflinchingly like soldiers or brave people getting older. …

Linens (from Poetry) Kay Ryan There are charms that forestall harm. The house bristles with opportunities for stasis: refolding the linens along their creases, keeping the spoons and chairs in their right places. Nobody needs to witness one’s exquisite care with the napkins for the napkins to have been the act that made the fact …

We’re Building the Ship as We Sail It (from Poetry Magazine, June 2006) Kay Ryan The first fear being drowning, the ship’s first shape was a raft, which was hard to unflatten after that didn’t happen. It’s awkward to have to do one’s planning in extremis in the early years – so hard to hide …

Crocodile Tears (from poetryfoundation.org) Kay Ryan The one sincere crocodile has gone dry eyed for years. Why bother crying crocodile tears. Comment: “Crocodile tears” isn’t an expression I’ve ever used, so I’ll let The Free Dictionary introduce us to it: an insincere show of grief; false tears [from the belief that crocodiles wept over their …

Turtle (from poetry 180) Kay Ryan Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her …