We've been studying Louise Glück (pronounced "glick") all week in CAP. I must admit, she is a hard poet for me to engage. She uses nature imagery as symbolic for her own life, and after 40 poems it gets a little old. Nonetheless, here is one that I can stand more than the others, mainly because the last three lines are fascinating to me:
Spring Snow
Love at the night sky:
I have two selves, two kinds of power.
I am here with you, at the window,
watching you react. Yesterday
the moon rose over moist earth in the lower garden.
Now the earth glitters like the moon,
like dead matter crusted with light.
You can close your eyes now.
I have heard your cries, and cries before yours,
and the demand behind them.
I have shown you what you want:
not belief, but capitulation
to authority, which depends on violence.
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1 comment:
Yeah, those last few lines are jarring to me, using words like "authority" and "violence" when I thought I was supposed to be envisioning a calm night scene.
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