Wednesday, January 26, 2022

James Tate

 

Poet James Tate, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and other major lilterary awards, has died at the age of 71.


Never Ever the Same

Speaking of sunsets, 
last night's was shocking. 
I mean, sunsets aren't supposed to frighten you, are they? 
Well, this one was terrifying. 
People were screaming in the streets. 
Sure, it was beautiful, but far too beautiful. 
It wasn't natural. 
One climax followed another and then another 
until your knees went weak 
and you couldn't breathe. 
The colors were definitely not of this world, 
peaches dripping opium, 
pandemonium of tangerines, 
inferno of irises, 
Plutonian emeralds, 
all swirling and churning, swabbing, 
like it was playing with us, 
like we were nothing, 
as if our whole lives were a preparation for this, 
this for which nothing could have prepared us 
and for which we could not have been less prepared. 
The mockery of it all stung us bitterly. 
And when it was finally over 
we whimpered and cried and howled. 
And then the streetlights came on as always 
and we looked into one another's eyes? 
ancient caves with still pools 
and those little transparent fish 
who have never seen even one ray of light. 
And the calm that returned to us 
was not even our own.

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