Three Poems: Kay Ryan Week™ Grand Finale

Yes, having cheated before with two, I'm cheating further today and (on the flimsy excuse of a grand finale) putting up three. I think there are some connections to be made between these poems, but the truth is, I like all three of them: so, as today is the last day of Kay Ryan Week™, I'd just put all of them up. Enjoy. And check out Ryan's other work -- she's just fabulous, as I hope I have amply demonstrated this week.

Patience

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

-- Kay Ryan


A Ball Rolls On a Point

The whole ball
of who we are
presses into
the green baize
at a single tiny
spot. An aural
track of crackle
betrays our passage
through the
fibrous jungle.
It’s hot and
desperate. Insects
spring out of it.
The pressure is
intense, and the
sense that we’ve
lost proportion.
As though bringing
too much to bear
too locally were
our decision.

-- Kay Ryan


A Hundred Bolts of Satin

All you
have to lose
is one
connection
and the mind
uncouples
all the way back.
It seems
to have been
a train.
There seems
to have been
a track.
The things
that you
unpack
from the
abandoned cars
cannot sustain
life: a crate of
tractor axles,
for example,
a dozen dozen
clasp knives,
a hundred
bolts of satin—
perhaps you
specialized
more than
you imagined.

-- Kay Ryan