James Wright: A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright: Hook

I was only a young man

In those days. On that evening

The cold was so God damned

Bitter there was nothing.

Nothing. I was in trouble

With a woman, and there was nothing

There but me and dead snow.

I stood on the street corner

In Minneapolis, lashed

This way and that.

Wind rose from some pit,

Hunting me.

Another bus to Saint Paul

Would arrive in three hours,

If I was lucky.

Then the young Sioux

Loomed beside me, his scars

Were just my age.

Ain't got no bus here

A long time, he said.

You got enough money

To get home on?

What did they do

To your hand? I answered.

He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight

And slashed the wind.

Oh, that? he said.

I had a bad time with a woman. Here,

You take this.

Did you ever feel a man hold

Sixty-five cents

In a hook,

And place it

Gently

In your freezing hand?

I took it.

It wasn't the money I needed.

But I took it.