THE ROUND

by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy
A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the door of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page;
“Light splashed…”

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

[from The Wild Braid: a poet reflects on a century in the garden, by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine, c2005]

From his celebrated seaside garden, a beloved poet – in his one hundredth year – speaks about life, poetry, and the kindred spirit in all living things