Gift poem – Alice Notley

Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel

the stress on your back shapes your insight

this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find

you by your marks, he says

an imprint

But when I summon you, I talk to—I say—

my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy

to others. They’re not very interesting he says.

When I first came to this country, and now

I know the language I say, but I had in a dream

spoken it many years previously. That is,

not the language of the dead the language

of France. I took one year of French in 1964

and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French

in a dream all night: I was in the future I

moved here in 1992. Country of the more

logical than I? though the people of my quartier

know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange

You do everything alone a woman said to me.

There are ways to care without interfering

but the French speak of anguish frequently

they are conscious of emotional extremity

a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . .

some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure

he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday

today though it’s the day of the dead hello

we love you they say.

Copyright ©: 
Alice Notley

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Poems in English 

• Spenserian Stanzas On Charles Armitage Brown poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Spenserian Stanza. Written At The Close Of Canto II, Book V, Of “The Faerie Queene” poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Specimen Of An Induction To A Poem poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XVII. Happy Is England poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XVI. To Kosciusko poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XV. On The Grasshopper And Cricket poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XIV. Addressed To The Same (Haydon) poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet X. To One Who Has Been Long In City Pent poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XIII. Addressed To Haydon poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XII. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet XI. On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Written Upon The Top Of Ben Nevis poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer’s Tale Of ‘The Floure And The Lefe’ poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Written On A Blank Page In Shakespeare’s Poems, Facing ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Written In Disgust Of Vulgar Superstition poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Written In Answer To A Sonnet By J. H. Reynolds poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Written Before Re-Read King Lear poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. Why Did I Laugh Tonight? poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet: When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet VIII. To My Brothers poem – John Keats poems by John Keats

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