A Reason by Robert Creeley
A Reason
Robert CreeleyEach gesture
is a common one, a
black dog, crying, a
man, crying.All alike, people
or things grow
fixed with what
happens to them.I throw a stone.
It hits the wall,
it hits a dog,
it hits a child—my sentimental
names for years
and years ago, from
something I’ve not become.If I look
in the mirror,
the wall, I
see myself.If I try
to do better
and better, I
do the same thing.Let me hit you.
Will it hurt.
Your face is hurt
all the same.
MARGINALIA
Here’s a secret: I wanted to steal all the Robert Creeley books in the library. Every bookstore I went to doesn’t have his works. Shame.
ABOUT ROBERT CREELEY
Robert Creeley was born in Arlington, Massachusetts, on May 21, 1926. He attended Harvard University from 1943 to 1946. In 1946, he published his first poem, in the Harvard magazine Wake. Creeley published more than sixty books of poetry including If I Were Writing This (2003); Just in Time: Poems 1984–1994 (2001); Life & Death (1998); Echoes (1994); Selected Poems 1945–1990 (1991); Memory Gardens (1986); Mirrors (1983); The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–1975 (1982);… (more)
Read more poems by Robert Creeley • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
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