the man whose pharynx was bad

the time of year has grown indifferent.
mildew of summer and the deepening snow
are both alike in the routine i know.
i am too dumbly in my being pent.

the wind attendant on the solstices
blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
the grand ideas of the villages.

the malady of the quotidian...
perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
through all its purples to the final slate,
persisting bleakly in an icy haze,

one might in turn become less diffident,
out of such mildew plucking neater mould
and spouting new orations of the cold.
one might. one might.  but time will not relent.

(from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose, p. 81)

*     *     *     *     *

Clearly Stevens was experiencing a bout of poetic acedie expressed in this poem.  maybe i like it because i can relate to it: the feeling of those periods where everything seems to stop, inside and outside.  i know what he means about the snow and the mildew, perhaps because I also hail from southeastern Pennsylvania, where we have these seasons.  and if only he could take some time out of his busy schedule, the routine of work, child-rearing and homelife, to articulate his feelings and penetrate his perceptions more fully.

This a poem that  was later added to Harmonium.

Comments

[Lori Witzel]

Those darn doughts and dry spots. Love this selection, as I'm feeling the sand and grit in the spring-water myself right now.

Flow on...

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If only he could take some time out of his busy schedule and got more time for his life, child-rearing and homelife, to articulate his feelings and penetrate his perceptions more fully than just work...

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For me this is quite amazing, when I wrote this poem it was the impact of what I felt as we drove towards Ebba Vale, I was more than amazed. I have since written a musical entitled "Common Threads" linking the workers of the Sugar cane plantation of Grenada in the Caribbean with the coal mining workers of Big Pit in Torfaen S Wales.