Fire by Robert Creeley
Fire
Robert CreeleyClear smoke,
a fire in the far off
haze of summer,
burning somewhere.What is
a lonely heart for
if not
for itself alone.Do the questions
answer themselves,
all wonder
brought to a reckoning?When you are done,
I am done,
then it seems that
one by onewe can leave it all,
to go on.
MARGINALIA
I’ve been doing this thing where I am working myself ragged for days. I feel so exhausted – my brain could run for hours if I let it, but my back is proclaiming agony. Surprisingly though my heart is doing well. No weeping of any kind. Yes! Isn’t that fantastic? Or maybe I am just going insane again.
So here: I’ve decided to leave the city. For a day, that is. In a few hours, I’m going to leave its filth, its drama, its persnickety ways. Rest. Breathe. Lose myself. And maybe find it again.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in For Love: Poems 1950-1960 by Robert Creeley, published by Scribner, 1962.
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)
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ENDNOTES
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