Wait by Galway Kinnell
Wait
Galway KinnellWait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
MARGINALIA
Pain will be interesting. And life, love, laughter. Even longing. And being alone will be interesting. Being alone will become lovely again.
—
(•)
Update on 24 August 2011: Andrew Bird sings Wait, based on the poem above. Thank you, A. It is beautiful.
ABOUT GALWAY KINNELL
Galway Kinnell was born in Providence on February 1, 1927. In 1948, he graduated from Princeton University. His first book of poems, What a Kingdom It Was (Houghton Mifflin), was published in 1960, followed by Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock (Houghton Mifflin, 1964). Kinnell published several more volumes of poetry, including Strong Is Your Hold (Houghton Mifflin, 2006); A New Selected Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 2000), a finalist for the National Book Award; Imperfect… (more)
Read more poems by Galway Kinnell • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
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Susan Scheid
T: another beauty! Interesting to read this “side-by-side” with Creeley, too.
Darren
Wait… listen… happy flute music floats above me,
Reading the notes of my sorrow.
Thanks T. (and Kinnel)