A beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding

Yesterday Charles Simic was named the 15th poet laureate.

I first read Simic's collection The World Doesn't End for a class on tricksters I took as a freshman in college. (This class remains one of my favorites.) The book is full of dark images, absence as presence and unknowns, as well as a sly humor creeping in. I love it. Below is one of my favorites.

Once I knew, then I forgot. It was as if I had fallen asleep in a field only to discover at waking that a grove of trees had grown around me.

"Doubt nothing, believe everything," was my friend's idea of metaphysics, although his brother ran away with his wife. He still bought her a rose everyday, sat in an empty house for the next twenty years talking to her about the weather.

I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!

My friend's empty house one of its windows lit. The dark trees multiplying all around it.

Comments

[Maryam in Marrakesh]

What an absolutely gorgeous passage.

[Briana]

Okay - need to get me some of that.

Did you ever have a chance to flip thru Cinnamon Peelers?

[Claire]

Yes, and I love it. That first poem about being on the porch and looking at old family photos kills me. He's such a gorgeous writer. Thank you again!!

[Jennifer]

"My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!"

:)

[Kristen]

That is awesome. I'm going to have to copy the whole thing down.

Somewhere I still have a poem of his (about putting on shoes, I think) that you wrote out on construction paper with a marker and gave to me for some reason or other. I used to have it hanging inside my closet door at Collins.

[grasshopper]

Thanks, Claire. I've read isolated poems of his that played in my head a few days. This one I won't forget. I'm off to The Strand book store now. It's around the corner. Thanks.