[New-Poetry] Mark Strand at Keillor's The Writer's Almanac

[Anny Ballardini]

 Poor North

by Mark Strand<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,d2h9,dv,178c,740q,3hrs,fxvj>

It is cold, the snow is deep,
the wind beats around in its cage of trees,
clouds have the look of rags torn and soiled with use,
and starlings peck at the ice.
It is north, poor north. Nothing goes right.

The man of the house has gone to work,
selling chairs and sofas in a failing store.
His wife stays home and stares from the window into the trees,
trying to recall the life she lost, though it wasn't much.
White flowers of frost build up on the glass.

It is late in the day. Brants and Canada geese are asleep
on the waters of St Margaret's Bay.
The man and his wife are out for a walk; see how they lean
into the wind; they turn up their collars
and the small puffs of their breath are carried away.

"Poor North" by Mark Strand, from *New Selected Poems*. (c) Alfred A. Knopf,
2007. Reprinted with permission. (buy
now<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,d2h9,dv,ab1v,f9q7,3hrs,fxvj>)



-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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