Meanwhile

deviant art by keribang


Meanwhile

It waits. While I am walking
through the pine trees
along the river, it is waiting.
It has waited a long time.
In southern France, in Belgium,
and even Alabama.
Now it waits in New England
while I say grace over
almost everything:
for a possum dead on someone’s lawn,
the single light on a levee
while Northampton sleeps,
and because the lanes between houses
in Greek hamlets are exactly the width
of a donkey loaded on each side
with barley.
Loneliness is the mother’s milk of America.
The heart is a foreign country
whose language none of us is good at.
Winter lingers on in the woods,
but already it looks discarded
as the birds return and sing carelessly;
as though there never was the power
or size of December.
For nine years in me it has waited.
My life is pleasant, as usual.
My body is a blessing
and my spirit clear.
But the waiting does not let up.


Jack Gilbert

Posted over on Granta