Thank you for reading and listening and watching—for being part of our community—through
Thank you for reading and listening and watching—for being part of our community—throughout this month. With final good wishes for the health of all, here is Frank O'Hara (1926-1966), one of the presiding spirits of Knopf Poetry for his generosity on the page, his pursuit of beauty in its myriad forms, his boundless sense of adventure and of literature’s possibilities. May soft banks enfold you until we meet again over a poem.RiverWhole days would go by, and later their years,while I thought of nothing but its darknessdrifting like a bridge against the sky.Day after day I dreamily sought its melancholy,its searchings, its soft banks enfolded me,and upon my lengthening neck its kisswas murmuring like a wound. My very lifebecame the inhalation of its weedy ponderingsand sometimes in the sunlight my eyes,walled in water, would glimpse the pathwayto the great sea. For it was there I was being borne.Then for a moment my strengthening armswould cry out upon the leafy crest of the airlike whitecaps, and lightning, swift as pain,would go through me on its way to the forest,and I’d sink back upon that brutal tendernessthat bore me on, that held me like a slavein its liquid distances of eyes, and one day,though weeping for my caresses, would abandon me,moment of infinitely salty air! sun flutteringlike a signal! upon the open flesh of the world.More on this book and author:Learn more about Selected Poems by Frank O'Hara, edited by Mark FordLearn more about Frank O'HaraShare this poem and peruse other poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day seriesTo share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link -- source link
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