Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Robert Hass


HASS26_0013_cs.JPG Event on 10/24/07 in Kensington. Robert Hass (cq) at at his Kensington home. Hass is a Berkeley professor and a former U.S. poet laureate. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and teaches at UC Berkeley. Photographed October 24, 2007. Chris Stewart / The Chronicle Robert Hass, Poet Laureate


The Failure of Buffalo to Levitate

Millard Fillmore died here.

His round body is weighted by marble angels.

He lies among the great orators of the Iroquois.

 

Paint does not arrest the tradebook houses

In their elegant decay. They peel

Like lizards in the dying avenues of elm.

 

Gentle enough, night drifts

Above the yellow bursts of aspen in the park.

Something innocent and reptilian

 

Suffers here, cumbrously.

The souls of the wives of robber barons

Are imprisoned in the chandeliers.


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