Jane Hirshfield

In a Room with Many Windows
October 4, 2012 Hirshfield Jane

In a Room with Many Windows

 

In a room with many windows

some thoughts slide past uncatchable, ghostly.

Three silent bicyclists. Slowly, a woman on crutches.

It is like the night you slept out on the sandy edge of a creek bank,

feeling the step of some light, clawed thing on your palm,

crossing to drink. You were nothing to it.

Hummock. Earth clump. Root knob wild in the dark.

Like that thirsty creature.

You could guess it, but you can’t name it.

Jane Hirshfield‘s most recent book, Ledger (Knopf, 2020) centers on the crises of biosphere, climate, and justice. Her work, which has been translated into fifteen languages, appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and ten editions of The Best American Poetry.  A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and founder of Poets For Science, she was elected in 2019 to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Photo: © Curt Richter