From the Aperture Foundation’s Paul Strand Book by Joel Meyerowitz. Source: studiobaer.com
nes t ree
in turn I bore straw
much straw and went
in search of a tree to make
my nest but a tree I did not find
and with the straw I’d gleaned I packed
my chest I picked a field and I stood upright there
Familiar wounds
Everything in you grew, but not your hand.
Whenever they pushed your way a finger,
A dry stick or a blade,
Incautious, undiscerning
As a babe’s,
Your rude fist wrapped it round
And clung.
The living
in reverence fit
for the coffin which bears it
in black fit
for the procession where it moves
walks silently
our shadow
The small flame
The small flame
Which when we blow on the candle’s
Wiped away,
Where does it go? Where does it go?
What scares
What scares us in the scarecrow,
Said the birds,
What makes us fly off far away,
It is those two arms of theirs,
Those two arms ever open, some
Wrong readiness to embrace
Whatever.
We picked from the tree its tears
How far we went to not arrive, how weak
The longing like a palm leaf which began
To sweep over our footprints
So our way back be gone.
But now we are here,
And on the garden’s only tree
The boughs are hung with pears
All but from their lashes dropped
Like they wept apples.
The original poems can be read here
