Sunday, September 2, 2012

Carl Rakosi

Conversation in a Hotel Room

When my time comes, I want to be out as usual
                                                     on the playing field
with George and Homer, not in a hotel room
                                like the Chairman of the Conference.
I'd like it to be Sunday morning. The sun is shining.
On the ground beside me are my three favorite balls.
I pick one up and hold it for a moment
and look out over the bowling green
and as I get the bead and reach back to throw
I want to just buckle under nice and easy
                                                                and stay down!
This is a shepherd's song
a moment as authentic
as the State Flower of Iowa
when man with offices in eighteen cities but few words
reaches for the Old Crow
and discovers Tom Sawyer in The Financial World
(I had forgotten how much I miss Tom)
and I hear a shepherd singing:
How Endearing and Inscrutable is Man.

--Carl Rakosi

fr. Ere-Voice
[New York: New Directions, 1975]

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