I missed Kay Ryan's 75th birthday yesterday – incredible that she's reached her three-quarter century, but I guess her fame came relatively late. Not a birthday to let go unmarked, so I thought I'd post one of her poems – better late than never (which sounds like one of her poem titles) – but which one? I decided to rely on the Sortes Ryanae, opening The Best of It: New and Selected Poems at random and seeing what it fell open at.
It was this – a beautiful evocation of a state of mind, namely 'Relief'...
We know it is close
to something lofty.
Simply getting over being sick
or finding lost property
has in it the leap,
the purge, the quick humility
of witnessing a birth—
how love seeps up
and retakes the earth.
There is a dreamy
wading feeling to your walk
inside the current
of restored riches,
clocks set back,
disasters averted.
America is lucky to have a poet still living who has something of greatness about her. I don't think we in England (since the death of Geoffrey Hill) can say as much.
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